s said it would be a life-long race
between them for supremacy with the brush. Huntingdon's sad death was a
terrible blow to the artistic world. I went to his funeral.

He had not forgotten me. He left me all his studies. There were several
hundreds of them. Many were familiar to me, for he had made them whilst
we were smoking a pipe together, as I pointed out to him the necessary
laws of science he must needs regard in order to insure accuracy in his
work. The studies made quite a number of huge bundles, and in the
evening I would delight in sorting them through. It was a long task, for
I found something to admire and think over in every single one of them.

A fortnight had passed away since they first came into my possession. I
had only another parcel to go through, and I should be finished. I was
quietly sitting in my chair with my legs stretched out on another chair,
as is my custom--I find it remarkably restful--and lighting up my brier
I cut the string of the last bundle. Slowly, one by one, I lifted up
those pieces of brown paper. They were still objects of reverence to me.
Here was the head of a child, a sweetly pretty child, and next to it a
study of a dissipated character, the face of a man fast losing every
working power of his brain and body by liquor. I realized the genius of
my dead friend more and more.

[Illustration: "SLOWLY I LIFTED UP THOSE PIECES OF BROWN PAPER."]

I had gone through quite a score of these play studies, when my hand
stretched out for another from the pile by my side. I turned the piece
of paper round and round, and it was some time before I grasped what the
subject was intended for. It appeared to be a piece of round tubing from
which smoke was protruding. The next half-dozen studies were of a
similar character. In one the smoke was very small, just a thin streak;
in another it was a full volume, as though to represent the after effect
of the discharge of a bullet from a revolver. I looked again. The chalk
drawing of the tubing was evidently intended for the barrel of a pistol!
Huntingdon always put the date on every study he made, and I found my
hand trembling as I turned the paper over. Great heavens--10th October,
1872--the day before his death! Another paper bore the same date, and
the others had the date of the previous day--the 9th. Was his death,
then, the result of an accident and not a suicide after all? Here was
the simple explanation of it so far--here was the reason for