uly appeared,
written by my Lay-figure.

"PREFACE.

[Illustration]

"The fact of my being only an artist's lay-figure will account for any
stiffness or angularity in my literary style. Whilst conscious of my
deficiencies in this respect, I am comforted by the consideration that a
lay-figure attempting literature cannot by any possibility perpetrate
greater absurdities than are committed by many a ready writer who
indulges in those glowing and gushing descriptions of artists and their
work which it is now the fashion to publish, in some such shape as the
present, for the delectation (and delusion) of a gossip-loving public."

This, the origin of "The Artistic Joke," is a fair specimen of the
absurdity I published as an advertisement, though many bought it and
read it as a "true and authentic account" of the confessions of a
caricaturist's lay-figure:

[Illustration: MY PORTRAIT. FRONTISPIECE FOR 'HOW HE DID IT.']

"As many would be interested in knowing how this extraordinary idea of
an Academy _pour rire_ first occurred to this artist, I hasten to
gratify their natural curiosity. It was before little Harry reached the
age of seven, and while watching with fellow-feeling the house-painters
at work in his father's house. One day, at lunchtime, when the men had
left their ladders and paraphernalia near the picture-gallery (a long
room containing choice works of all the great masters), he seized his
opportunity: with herculean strength and Buffalo-Billish agility, our
hero dragged all the ladders, paints and brushes into the gallery, and
soon was at work 'touching up' the pictures, to gratify his boyish love
of mischief. Truth to tell, his performance was but on a par,
artistically, with that usually shown when mischievous boys get hold of
brushes and paint and a picture to restore."

[Illustration:

25, Old Bond Street,
LONDON, W.
Jubilee Day 1887

I have been favoured--if that is the proper word--with a sight of an
advance copy of this perpetration.

I feel that the Easy confidence which has hitherto existed between an
artist and his Lay Figure is for ever broken and fled. If I had only
known that wine was taking advantage of her exceptional opportunities to
betray my misplaced confidence in this popular but pestilent fashion, I
would have made firewood of her long ago.

It is now too late. The temptation is turn Graphic Gusher and
confidential Trotter-out, has proved too much for a wee docile and
discr