Mariano. All the
images they made were quickly taken. People said they liked the way the
cheeks and noses of the Apostles were colored; and when Father Gonzales
brought in a sailor who had been shipwrecked, and the sailorman left ten
pesetas for a plaster-of-Paris ship to be placed as a votive offering in
the Chapel of Saint Dominic, their cup was full.

Mariano made the ship himself, and painted it, adding the yellow pennant
of Spain to the mainmast.

This piece of work caused a quarrel between Grandfather Fortuny and
Father Gonzales. The priest declared that a boy like that shouldn't waste
his youth in the shabby, tumble-down village of Reus--he should go to
Barcelona and receive instruction in art.

The grandfather cried and protested that the boy was all he had to love
in the wide world; he himself was growing feeble, and without the lad's
help at the business nothing could be done--starvation would be the end.

Besides, it would take much money to send Mariano to the Academy--it
would take all their savings, and more! Do not inflate the child with
foolish notions of making a fortune and winning fame! The world is cruel,
men are unkind, and the strife of trying to win leads only to
disappointment and vain regret at the last. Did not the artist Salvio
commit suicide? Mariano had now a trade--who in Reus could make an image
of the Virgin and color it in green, red and yellow so it would sell on
sight for two pesetas?

Father Gonzales smiled and said something about images at two pesetas
each as compared with the work of Murillo and Velasquez. He laughed at
the old man's fears of starvation, and defied him to name a single case
where any one had ever starved. And as for expenses, why, he had thought
it all out: he would pay Mariano's expenses himself!

"Should we two old men, about ready to die, stand in the way of the
success of that boy?" exclaimed the priest. "Why, he will be an artist
yet, do you hear?--an artist!"

They compromised on the Grammar-School, with three lessons a week by a
drawing-master.

Grandfather Fortuny did not starve. Mariano was a regular steam-engine
for work. He made more images evenings, and better ones, than they had
ever made before during the day.

Finally Father Gonzales' wishes prevailed and Mariano was sent to the
Academy at Barcelona. Out of his own scanty income the old priest set
aside a sum equal to eight dollars a month for Mariano; and when the
grandfather's sight gre