. Even
when sitting before the camera for his photograph, he had his little
joke.

[Illustration: BARNARD AND THE MODELS.]

There are a number of girls who go the round of the studios, but have no
right whatever to do so. They generally hunt in pairs, and this habit
surely distinguishes them from the real model. They are more easily
drawn than described. Two of this class once called on Barnard.

"What do you sit for?" he asked.

"Oh, anything, sir."

"Ah, I am a figure man, you are no use to me, but there is a friend of
mine over there who is now painting a landscape--I think you might do
very well for a haystack; and your friend might try studio No. 5 and sit
for a thunder-cloud, the artist there is starting a stormy piece--oh,
good morning." Tableau!

A wretched individual once called upon me and begged me to give him a
sitting. I asked him to sit for what I was at work upon: this was a
wicket-keeper in a cricket match bending over the wicket. I assured the
man he need not apologise, as he had really turned up at an opportune
moment; the drawing was "news," and it had to be finished that day. When
I had shown my model the position and made him understand exactly what I
wanted, I noticed to my surprise that he was trembling all over. I
immediately asked him if he were cold.

"No."

"Nervous?"

"No."

"Then why not keep still?"

"Well, that's just what I can't do, sir! I had to give up my occupation
because, sir, I am hafflicted with the palsy, and when I bend I do
tremble so. I only sit for 'ands, sir--for 'ands to portrait painters. I
close 'em for a military gent--I open 'em for a bishop--but when the
hartist is hin a 'urry I know as 'ow to 'ide one 'and in my pocket and
the hother hunder a cocked 'at."

[Illustration: "I SIT FOR 'ANDS, SIR."]

Hiding hands recalls to me a fact I may mention in justice to our modern
English caricaturists. We never make capital out of our subjects'
deformities. This I pointed out at a dinner in Birmingham a few years
ago, at which I was the guest of the evening, and as I was addressing
journalists I mention this fact in justice to myself and my brother
caricaturists. As it happened, that afternoon I had heard Mr. Gladstone
making his first speech in the opening of Parliament, 1886, after being
returned in Opposition. Turning round to his young supporters, he used
for the first time the now famous expression "an old Parliamentary
hand," holding up at the same time a