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STUDENT DAYS
BF ves is days are, I think, some of the very happiest i )

one’s life. My own were no exception to the rule. After

completing my Art School Course, I went to London and
studied for three years at Frank Calderon’s School of Animal Paint=
ing, in the dear old studios just off Baker Street. The lower floor
was fitted up as a stable, and four days a week we had a horse as @
model—a hunter, a thoroughbred, a charger in military trappings,
a race horse, a cab horse—or, what we liked best of all, one of the
great Shire horses belonging to the Borough Corporation, who
brought his driver and his nose-bag with him and stayed all day.
The other horses went home for their dinner to the neighboring
mews and returned in the afternoon. We had a fine opportunity of
studying horses in action when the fire-engines came tearing along
Baker Street, as they often did. At the sound of the firemen’s bell
and the hoarse shouts of the hose-men who clung to the swaying
engine, we would fly out into the street—palette and brushes in
hand—to see the magnificent creatures literally leaping in their har-
ness as they thundered by. E
In the upstairs studio there was a dog for us to study also four days
a week. Calderon kept several dogs for models, including some grey-
hounds and great Danes. They had grown up to their job and under-
stood perfectly what was required of them. Susan, a huge brindled
Dane, was a general favourite. She was well on in years and had
been a model from three months old. When we wanted her to prick

her ears, all we had to do was to rustle our sandwich papers, in which
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