WAYS OF THE MODEL.

Alexandra Herald and Central Otago Gazette, Issue 409, 10 March 1904, Page 7

WAYS OF THE MODEL.

111JJKHB ways of the female model are 1 vmC* extremely interesting if she has ] yßfe» taken possession of a Btudio, as a i model loves to do. If she has had anything of an experience she has seen all sorts of distinguished men in their shirt sleeves, so to speak, and her comments, casually dropped, would make an interesting supplement to the diction* aries of present-day biography. She has astounding revelations to make as to the language used in moments of irritation by So-and-So, E A., the painter of blameless canvasses, greatly honoured by the sort of people who come up from the suburbs to the Academy, and do the round of it, making absurd pencil marks on their catalogues. She will tell you that such and such another, whose pictures sell magnificently, is an amazingly unsatisfactory paymaster; that another painter of the choicest of chic pictures nurses a hidden passion for chocolate. A: Boswell might acquire invaluable information at her lips. She has a passion for economy, and is convinced that your housekeeper is undoubtedly lazy, .and probably none too , honest. In moments of leisure she asks leave •to count your socks having discovered with amazement that you do not know their number—and thereafter she repeats the request at intervals so that she may keep a check upon the womap she suspects. She would be finally and for ever happy if she could persuade you to go in for a Washing-book, and look after it yourself at the end of each week. She makes tea excellently, and has very soon learned the exact hour at which you most like to take it. If you have pretty possessions of any kind, you are apt to develop ere long an uneasy suspicion that they really do not belong to you: it is certain that they do not give you half the pleasure that she takes in them. She is an excellent deviser of studio lunches, and will get you a meal that is infinitely more pleasing than the average restaurant can provide at something like naif the vcost. Here, for example, is an excellent for three:—Plain fare: Sardines, "SI? J pound cold boiled beef, 9d; -J- ---., round tomatoes, 4d; 3 small endiveß, 3d; ]' 2 bottles of beer, 4|d;. cheese 4d; bread a&d butter ; total, 2s 6|d. The sardines and cheese are not all eaten, and will . appear again. Then you have taught her Ito make really good coffee, and as she

brings that in you sniff the aroma across the width of the studio, and the most supercilious critic in the world would never ba able to convince you that you have not lunched exceedingly well. She can rise to a chop or a steak, excellently grilled, and if she is clever she may even know how to do marvellous things with a ' casserole.' If she has one grave fault, it is a passion for divers incongruous things, It is all very well to have flowers about the place from time to lime. They are pleasant to look at, and they can be thrown away when they are done with. But when a model has begun, to use her own words, 'to take an interest' in the studio, she is rather apt to forget the nature of the .building, and regard it as a sort of conservatory. Things in pots appear mysteriously as * surprises' for you. There is ho plant on earth that can stand the air of a studio. They die, and the pots are a nuisance thereafter > for a coalhole is not of unlimited capacity, and the coalhole is about the only place provided in a studio for the disposal of unsightly rubbish. Of course, she has her opinion as to the value of your work; she 'has not been a model all these years without knowing if a man can draw.' But she can exercise a kindly reticence, and even comfort yon with pleasant liis, if your canvas has got all wrong and absolutely refuses to come right. It is on such occasions that she remembers how bad is the work of men who are vastly more famous than you. She is, in short, an excellent companion, for she can natter as adroitly as any woman on earth.—P. Mat.

A minister, -who lived in a rural diatric ia the West of England some time ago, was a strictly honest but painfully frank old man. One day he was approached by one Bill Jones, a man of doubtful repute tion, who said: 'Look'ee here, passzon. I want to make a request of 'ee, an' 'tis this; I want 'ee to promise you'll; preach my funeral sermon, if so be you outlive me.' • Why, certainly, Bill—certainly,' • An' I want 'ee to preach it from the words, 'An honeßt. man is the noblest work of God.' • I'll do it, Bill—l'll do it for you with pleasure,' replied the parson. ' And I'll add that I'm sorry there's such a very poor specimen in the coffin,' At the chief post offices in St. Petersburg and in Moscow there is only one clerk selling stamps. He closes his office at two o'clock. He cannot reckon chaßge without a counting-board. There are about half-a-dozen branch offices in these capitals, bat stamps are as rare as a postal order in a country store in an American village, At one branch office in Moscow the letter-box was full to overflowing when Mr' Gerrare called. He took his letters inside, but the clerk in charge declined to accept them. • But the letter-box is full.' 'Find a letter-box which is not full,' replied the clerk. '/That will be difficult.' • Then wait until one is emptied tomorrow.' Inspector: ' Now what is the equator ?' Sharp Boy: 'The equator, sir, is a menagerie lion running round the earth.' Bicyclist to Small Girl: ' Where does this ioad go to P* Little Girl: • Please, sir, I don't nn& it goes anywhere.' A farmer who had entered a pawnshop, surprised at the diversity of the articles exhibited, exclaimed, *'Pon my soul!' Whereupsa the pawnbroker mechanically returned,' How much do you want for it ?' Among 10,725 German school-children recently examined, only 5 per cent were found to possess sound teeth, Japan's national revenue amounts to about 27 millions a year. The National Debt of that country is £53,600,000. Whereas Great Britain grows 3601b of grain per head of her population, the North American, output is 22,2281b per head, : z u