had their portraits
painted by Mariano, praising the skill of his brush.

One day he said to his pupil, firmly:

"You know that I love you as I would a son, Mariano, but you are wasting
your time with me. I cannot teach you anything. Your place is somewhere
else. I thought you might go to Madrid. There you will find men of your
stamp."

His mother was dead; his father was still in the blacksmith shop, and
when he saw him come home with several duros, the pay for portraits he
had made, he looked on this sum as a fortune. It did not seem possible
that anyone would give money in exchange for colors. A letter from Don
Rafael convinced him. Since that wise gentleman advised that his son
should go to Madrid, he must agree.

"Go to Madrid, my boy, and try to make money soon, for your father is
old and will not always be able to help you."

At the age of sixteen, Renovales landed in Madrid and finding himself
alone, with only his wishes for his guide, devoted himself zealously to
his work. He spent the morning in the Museo del Prado, copying all the
heads in Velasquez's pictures. He felt that till then he had been blind.
Besides, he worked in an attic studio with some other companions and
evenings painted water-colors. By selling these and some copies, he
managed to eke out the small allowance his father sent him.

He recalled with a sort of homesickness those years of poverty, of real
misery, the cold nights in his wretched bed, the irritating
meals--Heaven knows what was in them--eaten in a bar-room near the
Teatro Real; the discussions in the corner of a cafe, under the hostile
glances of the waiters who were provoked that a dozen long-haired youths
should occupy several tables and order all together only three coffees
and many bottles of water.

The light-hearted young fellows stood their misery without difficulty
and, to make up for it, what a fill of fancies they had, what a glorious
feast of hopes! A new discovery every day. Renovales ran through the
realm of art like a wild colt, seeing new horizons spreading out before
him, and his career caused an outburst of scandal that amounted to
premature celebrity. The old men said that he was the only boy who "had
the stuff in him"; his comrades declared that he was a "real painter,"
and in their iconoclastic enthusiasm compared his inexperienced works
with those of the recognized old masters--"poor humdrum artists" on
whose bald pates they felt obliged to vent their s