"O no! Mr. Landor. That cannot be. Why, you will spoil the picture. You won't look like a patriarch without a beard."
"I ordered my barber to come and shear me to-morrow. The weather is getting to be very warm, and a heavy beard is exceedingly uncomfortable. I must be shaved to-morrow."
"Pray countermand the order, dear Mr. Landor. Do retain your beard until the picture is completed. You will not be obliged to wait long. We shall all be so disappointed if you don't."
"Well, well, I suppose I must submit."
And thus the matter was amicably arranged, to our infinite satisfaction.
Those sittings were very pleasant to the artist and his chaperon, and were not disagreeable, I think, to the model. Seated in his arm-chair, with his back to the window that the light might fall on the top of his head and form a sort of glory, Landor looked every inch a seer, and would entertain us with interesting though unseerlike recollections, while the artist was busy with his brush.
Putting out his foot one day, he said, "Who could suppose that that ugly old foot had ever been good-looking? Yet they say it was once. When I was in Rome, an artist came to me, and asked to take a cast of my foot and leg."
"Ah, Mr. Landor, you don't know how good-looking you might be now, if you would get a new suit of clothes and a nice pair of boots."
"No, no. I never intend to buy anything more for myself. My old clothes are quite good enough. They are all-sufficient for this world, and in the next I sha'n't need any; that is, if we are to believe what we are told."
"But, indeed, Mr. Landor, you really ought to get a new cap."