y could do so many
things well that it was difficult to fix on one.

At that time there was living in Florence an old man who knew a great
deal about the stars, and who made wonderful calculations about them.
He was a famous astronomer, but he cared not at all for honour or fame,
but lived a simple quiet life by himself and would not mix with the gay
world.

Few visitors ever came to see him, for it was known that he would
receive no one, and so it was a great surprise to old Toscanelli when
one night a gentle knock sounded at his door, and a boy walked quietly
in and stood before him.

Hastily the old man looked up, and his first thought was to ask the
child how he dared enter without leave, and then ask him to be gone,
but as he looked at the fair face he felt the charm of the curious
smile, and the light in the blue eyes, and instead he laid his hand
upon the boy's golden head and said: 'What dost thou seek, my son?'

'I would learn all that thou canst teach me,' said Leonardo, for it was
he.

The old man smiled.

'Behold the boundless self-confidence of youth!' he said.

But as they talked together, and the boy asked his many eager
questions, a great wonder awoke in the astronomer's mind, and his eyes
shone with interest. This child-mind held depths of understanding such
as he had never met with among his learned friends. Day after day the
old man and the boy bent eagerly together over their problems, and when
night fell Toscanelli would take the child up with him to his lonely
tower above Florence, and teach him to know the stars and to understand
many things.

'This is all very well,' said Ser Piero, 'but the boy must do more than
mere star-gazing. He must earn a living for himself, and methinks we
might make a painter of him.'

That very day, therefore, he gathered together some of Leonardo's
drawings which lay carelessly scattered about, and took them to the
studio of Verocchio the painter, who lived close by the Ponte Vecchio.

'Dost thou think thou canst make aught of the boy?' he asked, spreading
out the drawings before Verocchio.

The painter's quick eyes examined the work with deep interest.

'Send him to me at once,' he said. 'This is indeed marvellous talent.'

So Leonardo entered the studio as a pupil, and learned all that could
be taught him with the same quickness with which he learned anything
that he cared to know.

Every one who saw his work declared that he would be the wonder of