It is thus not without reason that I lay some stress on the desirableness of prefacing each one of the following narratives by a brief account of the curious manner in which I became possessed of it.  As to my capacity for repeating these stories correctly, I can answer for it that my memory may be trusted.  I may claim it as a merit, because it is after all a mechanical one, that I forget nothing, and that I can call long-passed conversations and events as readily to my recollection as if they had happened but a few weeks ago.  Of two things at least I feel tolerably certain beforehand, in meditating over the contents of this book:  First, that I can repeat correctly all that I have heard; and, secondly, that I have never missed anything worth hearing when my sitters were addressing me on an interesting subject.  Although I cannot take the lead in talking while I am engaged in painting, I can listen while others speak, and work all the better for it.

So much in the way of general preface to the pages for which I am about to ask the reader’s attention.  Let me now advance to particulars, and describe how I came to hear the first story in the present collection.  I begin with it because it is the story that I have oftenest “rehearsed,” to borrow a phrase from the stage.  Wherever I go, I am sooner or later sure to tell it.  Only last night, I was persuaded into repeating it once more by the inhabitants of the farmhouse in which I am now staying.

Not many years ago, on returning from a short holiday visit to a friend settled in Paris, I found professional letters awaiting me at my agent’s in London, which required my immediate presence in Liverpool.  Without stopping to unpack, I proceeded by the first conveyance to my new destination; and, calling at the picture-dealer’s shop, where portrait-painting engagements were received for me, found to my great satisfaction that I had remunerative employment in prospect, in and about Liverpool, for at least two months to come.  I was putting up my letters in high spirits, and was just leaving the picture-dealer’s shop to look out for comfortable lodgings, when I was met at the door by the landlord of one of the largest hotels in Liverpool—­an old acquaintance whom I had known as manager of a tavern in London in my student days.

“Mr. Kerby!” he exclaimed, in great astonishment.  “What an unexpected meeting! the last man in the world whom I expected to see, and yet the very man whose services I want to make use of!”

“What, more work for me?” said I; “are all the people in Liverpool going to have their portraits painted?”

“I only know of one,” replied the landlord, “a gentleman staying at my hotel, who wants a chalk drawing done for him.  I was on my way here to inquire of any artist whom our picture-dealing friend could recommend.  How glad I am that I met you before I had committed myself to employing a stranger!”

“Is this likeness wanted at once?” I asked, thinking of the number of engagements that I had already got in my pocket.