"Then," said my mother, reassuringly, "I'll take good care if he is there next time, that he shall be locked in his room!"
To which he replied, "Even that assurance does not satisfy me!" And true to his word, he never called again.
I have always considered one of my best early caricatures to be that of the Rev. Dr. Goodford, Provost of Eton, whom I stalked in the High Street. I had remembered him, of course, when a small boy at Eton as Headmaster. When he saw the caricature he protested rather indignantly against my having depicted him with his umbrella over his shoulder—on the grounds that it was not his habit to walk in this way. A short time after the publication of the cartoon he was passing down the High Street with his wife when his reflection caught his eye in Ingleton Drake's shop-window, and he stopped suddenly to gaze in astonishment at what he saw therein. Running after Mrs. Goodford, who had walked on oblivious of his distraction, he exclaimed, "My dear ... 'Spy' was quite right after all—I do walk with my umbrella over my shoulder."
In later days when caricatures made way for characteristic portraiture I frequently met, for the first time, men whom I had "stalked" in earlier days. On one occasion I called upon a dignitary of the Church who had arranged to give me sittings. As I commenced to work he gave his opinions upon artists of the day, and he referred to a caricature of himself that had appeared in Vanity Fair.
"I can't think who did it," he said distastefully, "but it was a horrid thing. I'll show it to you."
Calling his secretary, he asked that the offending drawing should be found. The search, however, proved unsuccessful, at which fact I need not say that I was greatly relieved. I suggested to the reverend gentleman that I would rather he did not discover it at all! "But why?" said he. "It is the best I ever saw." It had been intended for a caricature, and the Bishop's friends had been unanimous in proclaiming it to be in every way typical, and not over-caricatured.
Some of my subjects had fixed ideas as to their own characteristics. I remember I was bent on doing Dr. Welldon, then Headmaster of Harrow, in profile, but he suddenly wheeled round on his heel and remarked, as if in explanation, "I always look my boys straight in the face." I endeavoured to persuade him to return to his former position. "You must imagine your boys over there," I explained, pointing to a distant spot on a far horizon, and the plan worked well.
REV. J. L. JOYNES (Lower Master, Eton.) 1887.