if
necessary; and now I have to look after him. Did I need any more
bothers than I have had since my return? Here I have my boy, whom
I left here, ill since the day I returned until now. He is now
better it is true, but he has been between life and death, given
up by the doctors, so that for about a month I have not been in
bed, let alone many others. Now I have this nuisance of a boy, who
says, and says again, that he does not want to lose time, that he
must learn. And he told me that he would be satisfied with two or
three hours a day. Now all day is not enough, so that he will be
drawing all night also. These are counsels of the father. If I say
anything he would declare that I did not wish him to learn. I want
some one to mind the house, and if he did not feel like doing it
they should not have put me to this expense. But they are no good,
no good at all, and are working for their own ends; but enough. I
beg you to have him taken away from before me, for he annoys me so
much that I cannot stand him any longer. The muleteer has had so
much money that he can very well take him back again; he is a
friend of his father's. Tell the father to send for him. I'll not
give him another farthing, for I have no money, I will have
patience until he sends for him, and if he is not sent for I will
turn him out, for I have done so already, on the second day after
his arrival and other times as well, and he won't believe it.

"For the business of the shop I will send you a hundred ducats
next Saturday. With this, if you see that they are diligent and do
well, give it to them and make me their creditor, as I was to
Buonarroto when he went away. If they are not diligent, and do
badly, place it to my account at Santa Maria Nuova. It is not yet
time to buy.

"Your MICHAEL ANGELO, in Rome.

"If you are speaking to the father of the boy, put the matter
nicely, mannerly; that he is a good lad, but too genteel, and that
he is not fit for my work, and that he must send for him."(111)

[Image #22]

ATHLETE

SISTINE CHAPEL, ROME
(_By permission of the Fratelli Alinari, Florence_)

The more gentle tone of the postscript is very characteristic. Outwardly
he would be rough,