way Montezuma will have less uneasiness concerning you. He
will think that, even if the omens be unfavorable, there will be no
danger so long as you are at a distance from his capital;
therefore, I think he is more likely to order some of the scribes
to take up their residence here, for a time, than he is to bid you
to cross to teach them there."

Such in fact was the purport of the message received from Montezuma
on the following day. Six of the most accomplished scribes of
Mexico were to proceed at once to Tezcuco, there to be instructed
in the new art; and the next day Roger found himself established in
a room in the palace, with the six Aztec scribes, and six of those
most celebrated for their skill in Tezcuco. Some attendants were
told off to mix colors under his directions, and to purchase for
him, in the market, all kinds of dyes and colors he might require.
A male and female slave were, at Roger's request, placed at his
service to act as models; and the attendants had orders to fetch,
from the cages and aviaries, any beasts and birds he might desire
to copy.

Roger had, at first, some difficulty in preserving his gravity at
thus undertaking charge of an art school. At first he confined
himself to sketching, from the models, with a burnt stick on the
white paper, and in seeing that his pupils did the same. Their
drawing had hitherto been purely conventional. They had always
drawn a man in a certain way, not because they saw him so, but
because that was the way in which they had been taught to draw him;
and he had great difficulty in getting them to depart altogether
from these lines, and to draw the model exactly as he stood before
them.

What he called his school hours lasted but four hours a day; and as
he did this work in the middle of the day, when it was too hot to
go out, but very pleasant in the rooms with their thick walls and
semi-shaded windows, it interfered but little with his daily life.
He had now a set of apartments next to those of Cuitcatl, with
attendants to wait upon him; but his time was spent as much in the
young noble's rooms as in his own. In the morning they walked
together, either in the town or beyond its walls. In the evening
they spent hours upon the lake, sometimes in large canoes with gay
parties, the boats decked with flowers; while at a short distance
another boat with musicians followed in their wake, the melody,
which was by no means agreeable to Roger when close, coming sof