This was news indeed to me, for as well as owing my education in drawing to the Academy Schools, I had caricatured from my earliest childhood. At the time I treated the assertion as a joke; but in later life, when the fiction was believed by journalists and set forth in print, I rather regretted my former indifference.
An episode occurred shortly after the publication of my caricature of the late Lord Alington, showing how easily such misunderstandings might gain credence. A friend of mine met me one day. "My dear fellow," he began, "there's a capital caricature in Sotheran's that you could study with advantage--you should go and have a look at it. You may get a few tips from it." I stared a moment to make sure that he was not pulling my leg, then I understood. "My dear old fool," I said. "Go and have another look and at the signature to it--that particular drawing is mine."
Pellegrini was quite as individual in his outward appearance as he was by temperament. In person he was little and stout, and extremely fastidious. He always wore white spats, and their whiteness was ever immaculate, for he rode everywhere, a fact which probably accounted for his bad health in later years. His boots, too, were the acme of perfection, and his nails were as long and pointed as those of a Mandarin. He used to tell the story of his arrival in London, without the proverbial penny, and how he wandered about the streets unable to find a night's lodging, until, growing weary and desperate, he slept in a cab. There were other stories of how he fought with Garibaldi, having a charmed life while the bullets whistled past him, or of his destined career of diplomacy, and of his Medici descent. One of the most amusing characteristics of Pellegrini was the way in which he related an anecdote. His expressive eyes, which always seemed to be observing everything, would commence to flash before the words came; and his English, which was ever poor, stumbled and tripped, for although he was rather too quick to recollect slang terms, his grammar remained appalling, but delightfully naïve. As the story progressed his eyes would roll and flash, and, working himself up into a frenzy as Neapolitans do, he would become extremely excited, until when the crisis came, the point of the story burst upon the listeners' ears with a bomb-like suddenness. His own description of how he would treat his enemy was inimitable. First he created his subject, and then imagined him lying in terrible agony and poverty by the wayside, and dying of thirst.