Fainting the "Queen's Taxes."

Auckland Star, Volume XXIII, Issue 108, 7 May 1892, Page 4 (Supplement)

Fainting the "Queen's Taxes."

One Monday morning Wills, the painter, arrived early at his studio and found in an armchair by the lire an unexpected guest. He had an. appointment with a sitter of a very different sort. Tliis one explained his presence by saying succinctly that he was tho queen's taxes. The ready check book was produced, but the cautious bailiff refused to abandon his distress. Wills got a neighbor to go for him to the bank and waited his. return by his own fireside.

On the easels were portraits, in various Btates of completion, of beautiful youug women—commission- which at that time flowed in fast. But with its back against the wall was a more ambitious work, a magnum opus, and dearer to. the painter's heart. Danton and Andre Chenier were standing in the tunibrU that was dragged slowly to the place v of judgment. All round them the Paris "mob, surging, hissed aud hooted; the poet's sensitive face showed nervousness and anxiety, but Danton was bold and defiant. The figures in the tumbril the painter had got almost to his satisfaction. But he hid not yet found a type of face that quite .expressed the ignoble rancor and cruel, eager vindictiveness of the revolutionary mob.

As ho looked at the bailiff comfortably lolling back in the armchair its owner had an inspiration. Wills begged his visitor to mount the dais, lifted the great canvas on the easel, and when the obliging neighbor returned from the bank with the cash for the check he found the man in possession posed in an attitude of great discomfort, but obviously flattered to have his portrait taken, and eager to serve his queen and his own interest at the same time. That bailiff was a frequent sitter in the Avenue studio whenever he could spare the timo from the pursuit of his public and his I think he found Wills paid better tiia/o. fclie queen's government.—Pall Mall Gazette.