before you enter my studio, that my eccentricity sometimes takes a
violent form. If I, in showing my work, discover in your face the
slightest sign that you are not _absolutely_ satisfied with any particle
of this work in progress, the _whole_ of it goes into the fire! It is a
risk: will you accept it, or will you wait till I have the drawings
_quite_ finished and send them to Oxford?"

"I--I--I ap--appreciate your feelings--I--I--should feel the same
myself. I am off to Oxford!" and he went.

[Illustration: Handwritten note]

I sent him drawings as they were finished, and each parcel brought back
a budget of letter-writing, each page being carefully numbered. This is
the top of page 5 in his 49,874th letter. I am not sure if I received
all the remaining 49,873 letters in the seven years. To meet him and to
work for him was to me a great treat. I put up with his
eccentricities--real ones, not sham like mine.--I put up with a great
deal of boredom, for he was a bore at times, and I worked over seven
years with his illustrations, in which the actual working hours would
not have occupied me more than seven weeks, purely out of respect for
his genius. I treated him as a problem, and I solved him, and had he
lived I would probably have still worked with him. He remunerated me
liberally for my work; still, he actually proposed that in addition I
should partake of the profits; his gratitude was overwhelming. "I am
grateful; and I feel sure that if _pictures_ could sell a book 'Sylvie
and Bruno' would sell like wildfire."

Perhaps the most pleasant confession I have to make is my fondness for
children. They always interest and amuse me more than "grown-ups." The
commonplace talk is to them unknown; it is full of surprises.

Perhaps the nursery's record of my family is not longer or any more
interesting than the sayings and doings of the youngsters of any other
family; still a few extracts may interest those who, like myself, are
interested in first impressions.

My eldest, just entering on his teens, had as companions two brothers
and one sister. Hearing there was an addition to this little family
group, he, dressed in flannels, ran into my studio, bat in hand, "Papa,
is it a boy or a girl?"

"A boy."

"Oh, I am so glad. I do want a wicket-keeper, and Dorothy can't
wicket-keep a bit."

[Illustration: "I DO WANT A WICKET-KEEPER!"]

A stoutly-made little fellow of eight, to his mother, who happened to be
extremely t