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I. At the Doctor's

My doctor took me to see a consulting physician. I liked him immensely. “Have you a pain in the back of your head?” he asked. I told him I had not.

“Shut your eyes,” he ordered, “put your feet close together, and jump backward as fast as you can.”

I always was a good jumper with my eyes shut, so I obeyed. My head struck the edge of the bathroom door, which had been left open and was only three feet away. The doctor was sorry. He had overlooked the fact that the door was open. He closed it. “Now touch your nose with your right forefinger,” he said. “Where is it?” I asked. “On your face,” said he. “I mean my right forefinger,” I explained. “Oh, excuse me,” he said. He reopened the bathroom door, and I took my finger out of the crack of it. “Now,” he said, “gallop like a horse for about five minutes around the room.” I gave the best imitation I could of a disqualified horse. Then he listened to my chest again. The physician held up his forefinger within three inches to my nose. “Look at my finger,” he commanded. He explaied that this was a test of the action of the brain. It seemed easy to me. I never once mistook his finger.

After asking me if I had a crazy grand-uncle or a cousin, the two doctors, the casual physician and the regular doctor, retired to the bathroom and sat on the edge of the bathtub for their consultation. The doctors came out looking grave. They wrote out a diet list to which I was to be restricted. It had everything that I had ever heard of to eat on it except snails. “You must follow this diet strictly,” said the doctors. “I'd follow it a mile if I could get one-tenth of what's on it,” I answered. “Of next importance,” they went on, “is outdoor air and exercise. And here is a prescription that will be of great benefit to you.” Then all of us took something. They took their hats, and I took my departure. I went to a druggist and showed him the prescription. “It will be two dollars 87 cents for an ounce bottle," he said. “Will you give me a piece of your wrapping cord?” said I. I made a hole in the prescription, ran the cord through it, tied it around my neck, and went out.

II. A Miller, accompanied by his young Son, was driving his Ass to market in hopes of finding a purchaser for him. On the road they met a troop of girls, laughing and talking, who exclaimed, “Did you ever see such a pair of fools? To be trudging along the dusty road when they might be riding!” The Miller thought there was sense in what they said; so he made his Son mount the Ass, and himself walked at the side. Presently they met some of his old cronies, who greeted them and said, “You'll spoil that Son of yours, letting him ride while your toil along on foot! Make him walk. Young lazy-bones! It'll do him all the good in the world.” The Miller followed their advice, and took his Son's place on the back of the Ass while the boy trudged along behind. They had not gone far when they overtook a party of women and children, and the Miller heard them say, “What a selfish old man! He himself rides in comfort, but lets his poor little boy follow as best he can on his own lags!” So he made his Son get up behind him. Further along the road they met some travellers, who asked the Miller whether the Ass he was riding was his own property, or a beast hired for the occasion. He replied that it was his own, and that he was taking it to market to sell. “Good heavens!” said they, with a load like that the poor beast will be so exhausted by the time he gets there that no one will look at him. Why you'd do better to carry him!”. “Anything to please you,” said the old man, “we can but try.” So they got off. Tied the Ass's lags together with a rope and slung him on a pole, and at last reached the town, carrying him between them. This was so absurd a sight that the people run out in crowds to laugh at it, and chaffed the Father and Son unmercifully, some even calling them lunatics. They had then got to a bridge over the river, where the Ass, frightened by the noise and his unusual situation, kicked and struggled till he broke the ropes that bound him, and fell into the water and was drowned. Whereupon the unfortunate Miller, vexed and ashamed, made the best of his way home again, convinced that in trying to please all he had pleased none, and had lost his Ass into the bargain.

III. The head of the Council of Europe has attacked the use of the death penalty in the United States as ineffectual and morally wrong. Council Secretary General Walter Schwimmer, speaking at the opening of the World Congress against the Death Penalty in Strasbourg, said: "Do you know how many people in the United States are on death row? No less than 3,700. Would anyone really believe that the death penalty is a tool to fight crime? If that would be true, the United States would be a country without crime and without violence." The three-day conference opened in the wake of the executions in the United States of Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh and convicted murderer and drug trafficker Juan Raul Garza.

n his remarks, Schwimmer cited the case of Joaquin Jose Martinez, a Spaniard who spent 37 months on death row for the killing of a drug trafficker and a striptease artist near Tampa, Fla. He was acquitted early this month after a retrial. He added: "Everybody knows the names of McVeigh and Garza. But already less people know the name of Mr. Martinez. What would have happened if the execution some years ago had not been postponed? Would anybody think this execution had been justice?"

Capital punishment in the United States became a key sticking point during the visit of US President George W. Bush to Europe last week. Critics questioned the effectiveness and the morality of capital punishment. President Bush said, however, that "the death penalty is the will of the people in the United States." The 43-member Council of Europe is the continent's biggest human rights organization and has obtained a total ban on executions in its member states. Abolishing the death penalty is also a requirement for membership of the European Union

IV. Self-Protection

One Thursday afternoon Mrs. Clark, dressed for going out, took her handbag with her money and her key in it, pulled the door behind her to lock it and went to the “Over 60s Club”. She always went there on Thursdays. It was a nice meeting for an old woman who lived alone.

At six o'clock she came home, let herself in and at once smelt cigarette smoke.

Cigarette smoke in her house? How? Had somebody got in? She checked the back door and the windows. Everything was locked, as usual There was no sign for forced entry. Had anything been taken? She went from room to room checking. Yes, some things were missing – her small radio, her golden watch, camera. That was all, she thought; but she couldn't be sure. She was angry, of course, but rather glad that nothing had been thrown down. Over a cup of tea she wondered whether someone might have a key to her front Door – “a master key”, perhaps. So she stayed at home the following Thursday.

Nothing happened. Was anyone watching her movements? On the Thursday after that she went out at her usual time, dressed as usual, but she didn't go to the club. Instead she took a short cut home again, letting herself in through her garden and the back door. She settled down to wait.

It was just after four o'clock when the front door bell rang. Mrs. Clark was making a cup of tea at the time. The bell rang again, and then she heard her letter-box being pushed open. With the kettle of boiling water in her hand, she moved quietly towards the front door. A long piece of wire appeared through the letter-box, and then a hand. The wire turned and moved towards the door handle. Mrs. Clark raised the kettle and poured the water over the hand. There was a terrible scream of pain outside and the skin turned into the colour of tomato. The wire fell on the floor, the burnt hand was pulled back, and Mrs. Clark heard the sound of running feet.

That evening she reported the matter to the police. They were not too pleased, but they came and took away the wire. “It was only self-protection”, she told the officer. “An old woman must try to look after herself.” With the help of a doctor the police found the man and returned Mrs. Clark's things. She has become a heroine at the “Over 60s Club”.

V. Growth and Structure of the English Language

Loan-words have been called the milestones of philology, because in a great many instances they permit us to fix approximately the dates of linguistic changes. But they might with just as much right be termed some of the milestones of general history, because they show us the course of civilization and the wanderings of intentions and institutions, and in many cases give us valuable information as to the inner life of nations. When in two languages we find no trace of the exchange of loan-words one way or the other, we are safe to infer that the two nations have had nothing to do with each other. But if they have been in contact, the number of the loanwords and still more the quality of the loan-words, rightly interpreted, will inform us of their reciprocal relations, they will show us which of them has been the more fertile in ideas and on what domains of human activity each has been superior to the other. If all other sources of information were closed to us except such loanwords in our modem North-European languages as "piano," "soprano," "opera," "libretto," "tempo," "adagio" etc., we should still have no hesitation in drawing the conclusion that Italian music has played a great role all over Europe.

Similar instances might easily be multiplied, and in many ways the study of language brings home to us the fact that when a nation produces something that its neighbours think worthy of imitation these will take over not only the thing but also the name. This will be the general rule, though exceptions may occur, especially when a language possesses a native word that will lend itself without any special effort to the new thing imported from abroad. But if a native word is not ready to handle it is easier to adopt the ready-made word used in the other country; this foreign word is very often imported even in cases where it would seem to offer no great difficulty to coin an adequate expression by means of native word-material.

As, on the other hand, there is generally nothing to induce one to use words from foreign languages for things one has just as well at home, loan-words are nearly always "technical" words belonging to one special branch of knowledge or industry, and may be grouped so as to show what each nation has learnt from each of the others.

VI. The New York Times (The United States)

In several respects, the New York Times ranks as the best or nearbest newspaper in the United States. Certainly the biggest in total operations among American elite papers, it is, with 854,000 copies daily, along with the New York News and the Los Angeles Times, among the nation's top three in circulation. Although in recent years it has cut down on full texts of speeches and documents, the Times does publish the total transcripts of most presidential press conferences and thus comes closest of all American dailies to being a newspaper of record.

In a nation where no true national daily flourishes, the prestigious New York Times comes closest to the claim of being nationally read. A 1965 West Coast edition failed because most American newspaper advertising is local and out-of-state circulation does not seem to attract advertisers. But, despite that and the paper's preoccupation with the populous metropolitan East Coast, over onefourth of its readers live more than 100 miles from New York. The Times manages to have readers in 10,651 towns in every state and in nearly all countries. Because of its thoroughness, it is highly respected in the nation's colleges and universities, found in practically every academic library and widely read by college presidents, professors and students. Its thick Sunday edition, sometimes containing 400 pages and weighing four pounds, finds its way into pace-setting homes across the face of the nation, with at least onethird of the copies going outside New York City.

VII. Old Country Advice to the American Traveller

One day my Uncle Melik traveled from Fresno to New York. Before he got aboard the train his Uncle Garro paid him a visit and told him about the dangers of travel.

"When you get on the train," the old man said, "choose your seat carefully, sit down and do not look about."

"Yes, sir," my uncle said.

"Several moments after the train begins to move," the old man said, "two men wearing uniforms will come down the aisle and ask you for your ticket. Ignore them. They will be impostors. On your way to the diner a very beautiful young woman will run into you on purpose and almost embrace you," the old man said. "She will be extremely apologetic and attractive, and your natural wish will be to become friends with her. Don't do this, go into the diner and eat. The woman will be an adventuress. If she speaks, pretend to be deaf. That is the only way out of it. I have traveled. I know what I'm talking about. On your way back to your seat from the diner," the old man said, "you will pass through the smoker. There you will find a game of cards in progress. The players will be three middle-aged men with expensive-looking rings on their fingers. They will nod at you pleasantly and one of them will invite you to join the game. Tell them you don't speak English."

"Yes, sir," my uncle said.

"One thing more," the old-man said. "When you go to bed at night, take your money out of your pocket and put it in your shoe.

Put your shoe under the pillow, keep your head on the pillow all night, and don't sleep."

"Yes, sir," my uncle said.

The old man went away and the next day my Uncle Melik got aboard the train and went to New York. The two men in uniform were not impostors, the beautiful young woman did not sit at his table in the diner, and there was no card game in progress in the smoker. My uncle put his money in the shoe and put his shoe under the pillow and didn't sleep all night the first night, but the second night he abandoned the whole ritual.

The second day in the diner my uncle went to sit at a table with a young lady. He started a poker game in the smoker, and long before the train got to New York my uncle knew everybody aboard the train and everybody knew him. While the train was travelling through Ohio, my uncle and two young ladies sang American songs together.

The journey was a very pleasant one.

VIII. The Statues of Prague

(Jerome K. Jerome)

It was in Prague that Harris and I did a kind and friendly thing to George. We had noticed for some time past that George was getting too fond of Pilsener beer. This German beer is an insidious drink, especially in hot weather; but it does not do to imbibe too freely of it. It does not get into your head, but after a time it spoils your waist. I always say to myself on entering Germany:

"Now, I will drink no German beer. The white wine of the country, with a little soda-water; perhaps, occasionally a glass of Ems or potash. But beer, never-or, at all events, hardly ever."

It is a good and useful resolution, which I recommend to all travellers. I only wish I could keep to it myself. George, although I urged him, refused to bind himself by any such hard and fast limit. He said that in moderation German beer was good.

"One glass in the morning," said George, "one in the evening, or even two. That will do no harm to anyone."

Maybe he was right. It was his half-dozen glasses that troubled Harris and myself.

"We ought to do something to stop it," said Harris: "it is becoming serious."

"It's hereditary, so he has explained to me," I answered. "It seems his family have always been thirsty."

"There is Apollinaris water," replied Harris, "which, I believe, with a little lemon squeezed into it, is practically harmless. What I am thinking about is his figure. He will lose all his natural elegance."

We talked the matter over, and, Providence aiding us, we fixed upon a plan. For the ornamentation of the town a new statue had just been cast. I forget of whom it was a statue, I only remember that in the essentials it was the usual sort of street statue, representing the usual sort of gentleman, with the usual stiff neck, riding the usual sort of horse-the horse that always walks on its hind legs, keeping its front paws for beating time. But in detail it possessed individuality. Instead of the usual sword or baton, the man was holding, stretched out in his hand, his own plumed hat; and the horse, instead of the usual waterfall for a tail, possessed a somewhat attenuated appendage that somehow appeared out of keeping with his ostentatious behaviour. One felt that a horse with a tail like that would not have pranced so much.

It stood in a small square not far from the farther end of the Karlsbrucke. But it stood there only temporarily. Before deciding finally where to fix it, the town authorities had resolved, very sensibly, to judge by practical test where it would look best. Accordingly, they had made three rough copies of the statue-mere wooden profiles, things that would not bear looking at closely, but which, viewed from a little distance, produced all the effect that was necessary. One of these they had set up at the approach to the Franz-Josefsbrucke, a second stood in the open space behind the theatre, and the third in the centre of the Wenzelsplatz.

"If George is not in the secret of this thing," said Harris-we were walking by ourselves for an hour, he having remained behind in the hotel to write a letter to his aunt-"if he has not observed these statues, then by their aid we will make a better and a thinner man of him, and that this very evening."

So during dinner we sounded him, judiciously; and finding him ignorant of the matter, we took him out, and led him by side-streets to the place where stood the real statue. George was for looking at it and passing on, as is his way with statues. But we insisted on his pulling up and viewing the thing conscientiously. We walked him round that statue four times, and showed it to him from every possible point of view. I think, on the whole, we rather bored him with the thing, but our object was to impress it upon him. We told him the history of the man who rode upon the horse, the name of the artist who had made the statue, how much it weighed, how much it measured. We worked that statue into his system. By the time we had done with him he knew more about the statue, for the time being8, than he knew about anything else. We soaked him in that statue, and only let him go at last on the condition that he would come again with us in the morning, when we could all see it better, and for such purpose we saw to it that he made a note in his pocket-book of the place where the statue stood.

Then we accompanied him to his favorite beer hall, and sat beside him, telling him anecdotes of men who, unaccustomed to German beer, and drinking too much of it, had gone mad and developed homicidal mania; of men who had died young through drinking German beer; of lovers that German beer had been the means of parting for ever from beautiful girls.

At ten o'clock we started to walk back to the hotel. It was a stormy-looking night, with heavy clouds drifting over a light moon. Harris said:

"We won't go back the same way we came, we'll walk back by the river. It is lovely in the moonlight."

Harris told a sad history, as we walked, about a man he once knew, who is now in a home for harmless imbeciles. He said he recalled the story because it was on just such another night as this that he was walking with that man the very last time he ever saw the poor fellow. They were strolling down the Thames Embankment, Harris said, and the man frightened him then by persisting that he saw the statue of the Duke of Wellington at the corner of Westminster Bridge, when, as everybody knows, it stands in Piccadilly.

It was at this exact instant that we came in sight of the first of these wooden copies. It occupied the centre of a small, railed-in square a little above us on the opposite side of the way. George suddenly stood still and leant against the wall of the quay.

"What's the matter?" I said. "Feeling giddy?"

He said: "I do, a little. Let's rest here a moment."

IX. The Mouse

Theodoric Voter had been brought up, from infancy to the middle age, by a fond mother whose chief wish had been to keep him away from what she called the coarser realities of life. When she died she left Theodoric alone in a world that was as real as ever, and a good deal coarser than he had thought. To a man of his temperament and upbringing even a simple railway journey was an annoying experience, and as he settled himself down in a second-class compartment one September morning he felt very uneasy. He had been staying at a country house. The pony carriage that was to take him to the station had never been properly ordered and when the moment for his departure drew near, the coachman was nowhere to be found. In this emergency Theodoric, to his disgust, had to harness the pony himself in an ill-lighted outhouse called a stable, and smelling very like one – except in patches where it smelt of mice. Theodoric was not actually afraid of mice, yet classed them among the coarser incidents of life. As the train glided out of the station Theodoric's nervous imagination accused him of smelling of stable-yard, and possibly of having a straw or two on his usually well-brushed garments. Fortunately the only other occupant of the compartment, a lady of about the same age as himself, was sleeping; the train was not due to stop till the terminus1 was reached, in about an hour's time, and the carriage was of the old-fashioned sort, that had no communication with a corridor, therefore nobody could intrude on Theodoric's semi-privacy. And yet the train had scarcely gained speed before be became aware that he was not alone with the sleeping lady; he was not even alone in his own clothes. A warm, creeping movement over his flesh betrayed the unwelcome presence of a strayed mouse, that had evidently got in during the episode of the pony harnessing. Shakes and wildly directed pinches failed to drive out the intruder, and soon Theodoric understood that nothing but undressing would save him of his tormentor, and to undress in the presence of a lady, even for so excusable a purpose, was an idea that made him blush. He had never been able to bring himself even to the mild exposure of socks in the presence of the fair sex. And yet — the lady in this case was to all appearances soundly asleep; the mouse, on the other hand, seemed to be trying to crowd a Wanderjahr into a few minutes.

Theodoric decided on the bravest undertaking in his life. Blushing like a beetroot and keeping an agonized watch on his sleeping fellow-traveller, he swiftly and noiselessly fastened the ends of his railway-rug2 to the racks on either side of the carriage, so that a substantial curtain hung across the compartment. In the narrow dressing-room that he had thus improvised he began with violent haste to extricate himself and the mouse from his clothes. As the mouse jumped wildly to the floor, the rug, slipping its fastenings at either end, also came down with a flap, and almost simultaneously the awakened sleeper opened her eyes. With a move ment almost quicker than the mouse's, Theodoric seized the rug and hid himself under it in the further corner of the carriage. The blood raced and beat in the veins of his neck and forehead, while he waited dumbly for the lady to speak. She, however, continued staring at him in silence. How much had she seen, Theodoric asked himself, and in any case what on earth must she think of his present position?

"I think I have caught a chill," he said desperately.

"Really, I'm sorry," she replied. "I was just going to ask you to open the window."

"I fancy it's malaria," he added; his teeth were chattering slightly, as much from fright as from a desire to support his theory.

"I've got some brandy in my bag, if you kindly reach it down for me," said his companion.

"No — I mean, I never take anything for it," he assured her earnestly.

"I suppose you caught it in the Tropics?" Theodoric, whose acquaintance with the Tropics was limited to Ceylon tea, felt that even the malaria was slipping from him. Would it be possible, he wondered, to disclose the real state of affairs to her?

"Are you afraid of mice?" he asked, growing more scarlet in the face.

"Not unless they come in quantities. Why do you ask?"

"I had one crawling inside my clothes just now," said Theodoric in a voice that hardly seemed his own. "It was a most awkward situation."

"It must have been, if you wear your clothes very tight," she observed; "but mice have strange ideas of comfort."

"I had to get rid of it while you were asleep," he continued; then, with a gulp, he added, "and getting rid of it brought me to this."

"Surely one small mouse wouldn't cause a chill," she exclaimed gaily.

Evidently she had detected something in his situation and was enjoying his confusion. All the blood of his body seemed to have mobilized in one blush. And then, as he thought of it, he was seized with terror. With every minute that passed the train was rushing nearer to the crowded terminus where he would be watched by dozens of eyes instead of the one paralysing pair that watched him from the further corner of the carriage. There was a chance that his fellow-traveller might fall asleep again, but every time Theodoric stole a glance at her he saw her open unwinking eyes.

"I think we must be getting near now," she presently observed.

The words acted like a signal. Like a hunted beast he threw aside the rug and struggled frantically into his clothes. He saw small suburban stations racing past the window and felt an icy silence in that corner towards which he dared not look. Then as he sank back in his seat, dressed and almost delirious, the train slowed down, and the woman spoke.

"Would you be so kind," she asked, "as to get me a porter to put me into a cab? It's a shame to trouble you when you're feeling unwell, but my blindness makes me so helpless at railway stations."

X. Mrs. Packletide's Tiger

It was Mrs. Packletide's pleasure and intention that she should shoot a tiger. Not that the desire to kill had suddenly come to her.

The compelling motive for the intention was the fact that Loona Bimberton had recently been carried eleven miles in an airplane and talked of nothing else; only a personally procured tiger skin and a heavy harvest of press photographs could successfully counter that sort of thing. Mrs. Packletide had already arranged in her mind the lunch she would give in her house in Curzon Street, in Loona Bimberton's honour, with a tiger skin occupying most of the foreground and all the conversation.

Circumstances proved favourable. Mrs. Packletide had offered a thousand rupees for the opportunity of shooting a tiger, and it so happened that an old tiger was in the habit of coming to a neighbouring village at night. He was so old that he had to abandon game-killing and confine his appetite to the smaller domestic animals.

The prospect of getting the thousand rupees stimulated the commercial instincts of the villagers; children were posted night and day in the jungle to watch the tiger, and the cheaper kind of goats were left about to keep him satisfied with his present quarters. The one great anxiety was lest he should die of old age1 before the day of Mrs. Packletide's shoot.

The great night arrived. A platform had been constructed in a comfortable big tree, and on it sat Mrs. Packletide and her paid companion, Miss Mebbin. A goat, with a loud bleat, such as even a partially deaf tiger might be expected to hear on a still night, was tied down at a correct distance.

“I suppose we are in some danger?" said Miss Mebbin.

She was not really afraid of the wild beast, but she did not wish to perform an atom more service than she had been paid for.

“Nonsense,” said Mrs. Packletide, “it's a very old tiger. It couldn't spring up here even if he wanted to."

“If it is an old tiger I think you ought to get it cheaper. A thousand rupees is a lot of money.”

Their conversation was cut short by the appearance of the animal itself.

As soon as it saw the goat it lay flat on the earth for the purpose of taking a short rest before beginning the attack.

“I believe it is ill,” said Louisa Mebbin, loudly.

“Hush!” said Mrs. Packletide, and at that moment the tiger began moving towards the goat.

“Now, now!” urged Miss Mebbin with some excitement, "if he doesn't touch the goat we needn't pay for it."

The rifle flashed out with a loud report, and the great yellow beast rolled over in the stillness of death. In a moment a crowd of excited villagers appeared on the scene, and their triumph found a ready echo in the heart of Mrs. Packletide; already that lunch in Gurzon Street seemed much nearer.

It was Louisa Mebbin who drew attention to the fact that the goat was dying from a bullet wound; while no trace of the rifle's work could be found on the tiger. Evidently the wrong animal had been hit, and the tiger had died of heart failure, caused by the sudden report of the rifle. Mrs. Packletide did not like the discovery, but the villagers gladly supported the fiction that she had shot the beast. And Miss Mebbin was a paid companion. Therefore, Mrs. Packletide faced the cameras with a light heart, and her picture appeared on the pages of all papers in England and America. As for Loona Bimberton, she refused to look at a paper for weeks. The lunch-party she declined.

The tiger skin was inspected and admired, and Mrs. Packletide went to a costume ball in the character of Diana.

"How amused everyone would be if they knew what really happened," said Louisa Mebbin a few days after the ball.

"What do you mean?" asked Mrs. Packletide quickly.

"How you shot the goat and frightened the tiger to death," said Miss Mebbin, with her disagreeably pleasant laugh.

"No one would believe it," said Mrs. Packletide, her face changing colour.

"Loona Bimberton would," said Miss Mebbin. Mrs. Packletide's face settled on an ugly shade of greenish white.

"You surely wouldn't give away?" she asked.

"I've seen a week-end cottage near Dorking that I should like to buy," said Miss Mebbin. "Six hundred and eighty. Quite cheap, only I don't happen to have the money."

Louisa Mebbin's pretty week-end cottage is the wonder and admiration of her friends.

Mrs. Packletide does no more shooting.

"The incidental expenses are so heavy," she says to inquiring friends.

XI. Is this the face of genius?

He is mischievous, keen-eyed, almost flirtatious. Half twinkle, half smirk, he looks out from his portrait with a tolerant, world-weary air. This is Shakespeare. Perhaps you thought you knew him: bald pate, thin brows, stiff white ruff. You thought wrong. There are 450 images of the greatest writer in modern history, so many that most people assume they know what Shakespeare looked like. All but three of those pictures are, in the opinion of most experts, fakes (or someone else).

There was, in fact, a whole industry in turning dusty pictures of forgotten nobles into “Shakespeare” portraits in the 1700s. Only the bust on William Shakespeare's grave in Stratford and an engraving for the cover of his first collection of plays – both done after his death – are agreed among most authorities to be actual likenesses.

But a retired engineer in a mid-sized Ontario city has a picture, handed down through 12 generations of his family, which may be the only portrait painted in Shakespeare's lifetime. The painting, which the owner hopes to auction through a major American house, bears the date 1603 in its upper right-hand corner. Experts have said it is from the right era and in the style of the time. The only dispute that remains is whether the rag paper label, affixed to the back, is right. It reads, in part, “Shakspere” – as the playwright spelled his own name – “This Likeness taken 1603, Age at that time 39 ys.”

The painting's owner, who does not wish to be identified out of fear for the security of the painting and his family, is in the final stages of authenticating its provenance. He has been told it could be worth thousands, or millions, of dollars.

“And to think we had it hanging for years on the dining-room wall,” chuckled the man, who has spent most of his savings trying to have the painting authenticated. “And when I was a kid, it was under my grandmother's bed.”

Told of the portrait yesterday by The Globe and Mail, Shakespeare scholars and art historians were cautious. “If this absolutely is a portrait of Shakespeare, then it is very significant,” Catharine MacLeod, curator of 16th- and 17th-century portraits at the National Portrait Gallery in London, said. The painting is about 42 centimetres by 33 centimetres, in tempera (made of pure pigment and egg yolk) on solid oak.

It is slightly worm-eaten at the top but otherwise well preserved, its colours rich, its sheen bright. It shows a Shakespeare with fluffy red hair and blue-green eyes, an appearance that matches descriptions of him in the journals of his contemporaries Christopher Marlowe and Francis Bacon.

The painting is reputed to be by one John Sanders, born in Worcester, England, and christened in March, 1575. The Canadian owner can trace his genealogy back to Mr. Sanders, who appears on the list of players in playbills of the era for various theatrical companies, including that of the King's Players, the same troupe as William Shakespeare. He performed in small roles, and sometimes painted backdrops. If the inscription on the back of the painting is to be believed, Mr. Sanders got Shakespeare to sit still for a day or two in 1603, or perhaps painted him from memory, having seen him at the theatre each day.