thed and ready to be transferred to the Exhibition. By an oversight the door of the studio was left unfastened, and on. our return in the morning it was found to have been opened.
On the floor, at the feet of the model of the Mar-quis, lay a bull's-eye lantern that evidently had been dropped by its owner as he rushed from the place. The probability is that the policeman, or the burglar, had flashed his lamp on the figure and had been scared to find, as he thought, a man—or a spectre---confronting him. No claim was ever made for the lamp.
It is not an unusual thing that visitors who wish to save expense should bring with them an old Catalogue which they have treasured up at home for a future visit. This is not a safe plan, for with the addition of new figures the older ones have to be renumbered. As a result the visitors in question are sometimes misled, as was the lady in the following story told by a Londoner.
He related that he had occasion to take a country cousin to the Exhibition, and she took with her an old Catalogue.
He paid little attention to her describing King Ed-ward IV as King Henry VIII, and exclaiming that she did not know Queen Mary of Scots dressed like a man. But when she said, "Well, I never ! I always thought Gladstone was a man, though my brothers call him an old woman," then he felt interested, and proceeded to investigate. There it was, sure enough; the model No. 63 was the figure of an old lady, but in the out-of-date Catalogue No. 63 was "William Ewart Gladstone.
Sometimes we get a rough old country farmer who has got it into his head that everyone in our Exhibition has committed some crime or other.
Visitors, when audibly perusing their Catalogue, are sometimes a source of entertainment to others who overhear them, owing to the curious mistakes they make. One day a jolly-looking countryman came to a standstill before the figure of Henry IV of France, described in our Catalogue as "Henri Quatre." "'Enry Carter," said he; "'oo did 'e kill?" and, finding the gentleman in question innocent of murder, he turned away with a disappointed _expression, but evidently with a fixed determination to discover a genuine criminal somewhere else.
Not only children, but also their elders, constantly mistake the policeman, the programme-seller, and the sleeping attendant for living people; but few children are so simple as the little maiden who, glancing awe-struck down the long array of very lifelike effigies of good, bad, and indifferent individuals, asked her mother in a whisper how they were killed before being stuffed.
One day a lady was explaining the different groups to her young nephew. Pointing to one, she said, "Freddy, this is the Transvaal crisis. Here are President Kruger, Mr. Cecil Rhodes, and Dr. Jameson; all those people are alive."
Indicating the next group, she said, "This is the execution of Mary, Queen of Scots; all these people are dead."
"I do not see any difference between the live ones and the dead ones," replied the young hopeful to his auntie, assuming a puzzled _expression.
There is no accounting for the actions of children. Several youngsters, for instance, have been observed slyly pinching the figures to see if any were alive.
The story is also told of a small girl who, when asked what she had done with her sweets, replied that she had given them to the baby in the cradle—Prince Edward of Wales.
A child was lost, and found concealed behind the figure of the Sleeping Beauty, trying to discover the mechanism that makes Madame St. Amaranthe's bosom rise and fall.
Of children's stories there is no end at Madame Tussaud's.
Sir Ernest Shackleton once told some amusing stories at a dinner of the Alpine Ski Club.
He said his own small boy was terribly bored with expedition talk. He told his mother that he wanted to hear of something really exciting. "I don't want to know anything more about papa," he declared; "tell me about the baby who was drowned in his bath." Was the boy thinking of Marat, the evil genius of the French Revolution, whom Charlotte Corday stabbed at his ablutions?
Sir Ernest