Plate 19: Mahmas

'There is the boy Mahmas whom our standards would make a murderer. He is short-tempered and proud, and cannot endure to be worsted in argument. When it happens he leans forward with his little knife and kills the other party. Three times he did it before people learnt to respect his convictions, however ill-expressed.'

When Kennington tried to awake his subject during the sitting, Mahmas 'leapt over me with his dagger ready about a foot from my eyes . . . I turned away and began selecting chalks, thinking "It will go in just above the collar-bone". But nothing happened, so I soon asked him to sit down again. He did, but kept the dagger ready, and it came out so in the drawing.'