Several visitors, mostly ladies, were in the room at the time, and they at once made for the door, which was thereupon locked upon the animal. Meanwhile we had telephoned to the Zoo that one of the monkeys had escaped and was in the Exhibition.
A keeper arrived shortly afterwards, and said he had missed it from its cage. Both keeper and monkey were delighted at their reunion. The monkey had not seemed to trouble much about the figures, which it probably took for living people, but the dead monkey on the lap of one of them had been more than it could stand.
CHAPTER XXXI
Queen Victoria’s copperplates—Another Royal Persian visit—“Perished by fire”—“Viscount Hinton” and his organ—The Coquette’s jewels lost and found.
In the early part of 1898 we purchased from an enterprising journalist four interesting copperplates—three of them etched by Queen Victoria and one by the Prince Consort. Of the four plates, three were done by the Queen within a year of her marriage.
Although not altogether faultless from an artistic point of view, the work is most conscientiously executed, showing how painstaking was the Queen even in comparatively trivial matters.
After her marriage Her Majesty found in the Prince Consort a fellow craftsman, and forthwith a room in Buckingham Palace was fitted up as a sort of combination studio and workshop. Here, under the guidance and advice of Sir Edwin Landseer, assisted by Mr. Henry Graves, the fine art publisher, the young couple worked for two or three hours in the morning.
Nor would the Queen allow any portion of the process to be performed by an assistant. Even the printing was done either by herself or her husband, a small press being set up for that especial purpose.