im to see that he was the typical Italian.

"If I had lived three hundred years ago," he said, "I should have been
one of Cellini's apprentices."

And yet he was the son of a Dublin builder! His father had never
himself thought to draw, but he had always taken an interest in
sculpture and painting, and he had said before Rodney was born that he
would like to have a son a sculptor. And he waited for the little boy
to show some signs of artistic aptitude. He pondered every scribble the
boy made, and scribbles that any child at the same age could have done
filled him with admiration. But when Rodney was fourteen he remodelled
some leaves that had failed to please an important customer; and his
father was overcome with joy, and felt that his hopes were about to be
realised. For the customer, who professed a certain artistic knowledge,
praised the leaves that Rodney had designed, and soon after Rodney gave
a still further proof of his desire for art by telling his mother he
did not care to go to Mass, that Mass depressed him and made him feel
unhappy, and he had begged to be allowed to stay at home and do some
modelling. His father excused his son's want of religious feeling on
the ground that no one can think of two things at once, and John was
now bent on doing sculpture. He had converted a little loft into a
studio, and was at work there from dusk to dusk, and his father used to
steal up the ladder from time to time to watch his son's progress. He
used to say there was no doubt that he had been forewarned, and his
wife had to admit that it did seem as if he had had some pre-vision of
his son's genius: how else explain the fact that he had said he would
like to have a son a sculptor three months before the child was born?

Rodney said he would like to go to the School of Art, and his father
kept him there for two years, though he sorely wanted him to help in
the business. There was no sacrifice that the elder Rodney would not
have made for his son. But Rodney knew that he could not always count
upon his father's help, and one day he realised quite clearly that the
only way for him to become a sculptor was by winning scholarships.
There were two waiting to be won by him, and he felt that he would have
no difficulty in winning them. That year there was a scholarship for
twenty-five pounds, and there was another scholarship that he might win
in the following year, and he thought of nothing else but these
scholarships until