The art of the photographer usually arouses in me all that is
splenetic, and I had not submitted myself to him for years before
Dora made such a preposterous point of it--years in which, as I
sadly explained to her, I might have submitted to the ordeal with
much more 'pleasing' results. She had often insisted before, but I
could never see that she made out a particularly good case for the
operation until one afternoon when she showed me the bold
counterfeit presentment of an Assistant Adjutant-General or some
such person, much flattered as to features but singularly faithful
in its reproduction of the straps and buttons attached. To my post
also there belongs a uniform and a cocked hat sufficiently dramatic,
but persons who serve the State primarily with the intelligence are
supposed to have a mind above buttons; and when I decided that my
photograph should compete with the Assistant Adjutant-General's, I
gave him every sartorial advantage. I gathered that the offer,
cabinet size, of this gentleman had been a spontaneous one; that
certainly could not be said of mine. Most unwillingly I turned one
morning into Kauffer's; and I can not now imagine why I did it, for
emulation of the Assistant Adjutant-General was really not motive
enough, unless it was with an instinct prepared to stumble upon
matter germane in an absurd degree to this little history.

I had the honour to be subjected to the searching analysis of Mr.
Kauffer himself. It was he who placed the chair and arranged the
screw, he who fixed the angle of my chin and gently disposed my
fingers on my knee. He gave me, I remember, a recent portrait of
the Viceroy to fix my eye upon, doubtless with the purpose of
inspiring my countenance with the devotion which would sit suitably
upon one of His Excellency's slaves, and when it was all over he