when a loaf of bread was given to him, instead of eating it like any starving man would do, burst out into a long solo over it lasting for ten minutes which he thought was obviously absurd!
But the musical instruments were only a few of the many odds and ends of all sorts that were stacked away wherever a place could be found for them. Anything Rossetti saw in his rambles that might be of possible use to him for a picture he would buy. He delighted to take an evening's walk through Leicester Square, visiting the various curiosity shops in that neighbourhood, or through Hammersmith, a district where many a Chippendale chair or table could be met with and bought for next to nothing, such things not being then in the repute that they have become since the taste for Queen Anne houses and fittings sprang up.44
On returning to the studio, we found there Howell, who had dropped in, and now the flow of talk became lively. Howell had a lot to say, and it consisted of the most astounding experiences and adventures he had gone through. He had just left Whistler, and was full of a "long Eliza" he had picked up somewhere, of his etching of old Battersea Bridge,45 of which he had been shown a proof, and of his latest witticism.46 The main object, however, of Howell's visit was to get from Rossetti a drawing he had made of a lady. I infer some bargaining had been going on between them, and that the drawing formed part of the bargain, but as Rossetti prized it
