THE ARTIST AND HIS LUNCHEONS.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 3218, 22 October 1881, Page 3

THE ARTIST AND HIS LUNCHEONS.

There is a certain well-known man about town who ia as distingxrished as a dramatist as he is popular as a painter ; he has generally two or three plays being performed on the London boards, and frequently a picture or so in the Royal Academy. He is what is called "excellent society," and enjoys the privilege, accorded to but few, of always having the opportunity afforded him of ordering his own dinner, simply because he makes that stipulation before accepting an invitation. Well, one day he received a command to repair to Windsor, in order to paint the Princess Louise's likeness. A room in the castle was to be placed at his disposal, and, as the picture was wanted | as Boon as possible, he was requested to do his work on the spot so that there might be no delay, and he was at the same time informed that lunch would be daily provided for him. He put his traps together, took the train, and was very soon in the Royal borough and at work, and everything would have gone on well enough " bar" the lunch, for certain it is that he never had anything else but mutton. One day he had a cut off a saddle of mutton, the next day one off a leg, the third some , boiled mutton and caper sauce, and so on. As he said with, tears in his eyes, it was all five-year-old mutton, reared on the royal farm, and if distributed at proper intervals over his life-time, would have made him a happy man ; but coming as it did daily it proved too much for hisgastronomical organs, and as the powers that were sternly refused to vary the monotony of the proceedings by an occasional bit of beef, he sorrowfully relinquished his task.—English paper.