had little interest for him, and circumstances which offered an
opportunity of escape combining with a happy chance which suggested
a higher artistic (and monetary) value for that faculty for drawing
which previously he had regarded in the light of a mere hobby,
caused him to throw up his earlier plans and devote himself entirely
to black-and-white illustration.

[Illustration]

There had been preparation for this, however. The son of an artist,
Frank Reynolds inherited his native talent, and this was developed
in no small measure during boyhood under his father's guidance. It
was the chief delight of Reynolds junior to "mess about" (as he
himself succinctly puts it) with the palette and tools of Reynolds
senior, and the licence thus permitted enabled him to discover for
himself much of the rudiments of the craft of the draughtsman and
painter. More was learned from long and absorbed contemplation of
his father at work.

[Illustration: "CHACUN" WITH HIS "CHACUNE".
_From "Paris and some Parisians"_]

If early inclinations were of more lasting duration than is their
wont, it is likely that Frank Reynolds would now be known to fame
as a painter of martial types and gory battlefields. With him the
fascination which soldiers and all things military have for the
boyish mind took the form of an intense eagerness to reproduce
in colour and line the gay pageant of the march. The skirl of the
fife and the tattoo of the drum inspired him with a desire, not to
shoulder a gun, but to seize a pencil. There was a shop in Piccadilly