os'--A Chemist's Shop _a la
Polychrome_--Sculpture under Difficulties--'Nothing like
Leather'--A Triumph in Triumphal Arches--Cuban Carpenters--The
Captain-General of Havana.

Our incarceration proves of professional service to us. It spreads our
renown and procures us more congenial patronage than we have hitherto
received. While I have been rusticating at La Socapa, my brother limner
has been busily employed on work in which he takes especial delight.

A rich marquis having just returned from a visit to Europe, is inspired
with the desire to decorate his new mansion, which has lately been
purchased by him, in what he calls a 'tasteful' fashion. For this
purpose all the decorative talent of the town is engaged. Nicasio is
also applied to, and undertakes to adorn the ceiling of the long
reception-room with four large oil paintings representing the seasons.
The marquis has not perfected his taste for the fine arts by his visit
to Europe, for he still persists in applying the vulgar term 'mono,' or
monkey, to all paintings in which figures form the leading features, and
of classifying everything else under the general denomination of
'paisaje.' All artists are to him 'pintar-monos,' or painters of
monkeys, and when he summons my partner to arrange about the pictures
which he desires to have affixed to his ceiling, he points to the
octagonal spaces which these productions are destined to fill, and
observes:

'Quiero cuatro monos para tapar estos hoyos,' which is equivalent to
saying: I want four daubs (monkeys) to cover over those holes with.

Nicasio accordingly makes sundry small designs for the four 'monos,' in
which certain allegorical figures of ladies in scanty robes, and Cupids
without any apparel, are introduced. My partner's favourite
water-carriers, Regina and Mapi, together with Dona Mercedes'
well-formed baby Isabelica, serve as models for Spring, Summer and
Winter which when finished, are affixed to their respective 'hoyos' or
holes in the ceiling. The picture of Autumn, however, remains
uncompleted. The rich marquis discovers that the quality of the work far
exceeds his expectations and finding also that its value has increased
in proportion, he considers that this season, which happens to be the
last executed, should be 'thrown in,' or in other words included in the
price charged for the other three. In short, he declares that unless the
'pintar-monos' agrees to this arrangement, that he