she had been sitting to a little Frenchman called
Whistler, who jumped about his studio and was always complaining that
people were swindling him, and that he was making very little money.
The artist suggested that if she could get any piece of painting out
of Whistler's studio he would give her ten pounds for it. Although
skeptical, the model decided to tell her "little Frenchman" of this
too generous offer, and selected one of the biggest and finest works
in the studio. "What did he say?" asked the artist who had made the
offer, when the model appeared in a state of great excitement and
looking almost as if she had come second best out of a scrimmage. "He
said, 'Ten pounds--Good heavens!--ten pounds!' and he got so
mad--well, that's how I came in here like this."

* * * * *

Mr. W.P. Frith, R.A., following the custom of artists, talked to a
model one day to keep her expression animated. He asked the girl to
whom she had been sitting of late, and received the answer:

"Mr. Whistler."

"And did he talk to you?"

"Yes, sir."

"What did he say?"

"He asked me who I'd been sitting to, same as you do; and I told him
I'd been sitting to Mr. Cope, sir."

"Well, what else?"

"He asked me who I'd been sitting to before that, and I said Mr.
Horsley."

"And what next?"

"He asked me who I'd been sitting to before that, and I said I'd been
sitting to you, sir."

"What did he say then?"

"He said, 'What a d----d crew!'"

* * * * *

Whistler once came very near painting a portrait of Disraeli. He had
the commission; he even went down to the country where Disraeli was;
but the great man did not manage to get into the mood. Whistler
departed disappointed, and shortly afterward took place a meeting in
Whitehall which was the occasion of a well-known story: Disraeli put
his arm in Whistler's for a little way on the street, bringing from
the artist the exclamation, "If only my creditors could see!"

* * * * *

Whistler's ideas, the reverse of commercial, not infrequently placed
him in want. He pawned his portrait of his mother, by many considered
the best of his productions.

Miss Marion Peck, a niece of Ferdinand Peck, United States
Commissioner to the Paris Exposition, wanted her portrait done by
Whistler. She sat for him nineteen times. Further, she requested, as
the picture was nearing completion, that extra pains b