After breakfast next morning, Sam rose resolutely from the table, like a man who means business, and said to his brother in a tone of authority, \'Come along, Colin; I\'m going to call on this Mr. Maragliano you were telling me about.\'

\'But, Sam,\' Colin expostulated, \'he won\'t receive us. We haven\'t got any introduction or anything.\'

\'Not got any introduction? Yes, I guess we have, Colin. Just you bring along those drawings and designs you showed us last night, and you bet Mr. Maragliano won\'t want any other introduction, I promise you. In America, we\'d rather see what a man can do, any day, than what all his friends put together can say to crack him up in a letter of recommendation.\'

Colin ran upstairs trembling with excitement, and brought down the big portfolio—Minna\'s portfolio, made with cloth and cardboard by her own small fingers, and containing all his most precious sketches for statues or bas-reliefs. They turned out into the new Rome of the English quarter, and following the directions of the porter, they plunged at last into the narrow alleys down by the Tiber till they came to the entrance of a small and gloomy-looking street, the Via Colonna. It is the headquarters of the native Italian artists. Colin\'s heart beat fast when at length they stopped at a large house on the left-hand side and entered the studio of Nicola Maragliano.

The great sculptor was standing in the midst of a group of friends and admirers, his loose coat all covered with daubs of clay, and his shaggy hair standing like a mane around him, when Sam and Colin were ushered into his studio. Colin stood still for a moment, awestruck at the great man\'s leonine presence; for Maragliano was one of the very few geniuses whose outer shape corresponded in majesty to the soul within him.
 
But Sam, completely unabashed by the novelty of the situation, walked straight up to the famous artist, and said with a rapid jerk in his own natural, easy-going manner, \'Speak any English?\'

\'A leetle,\' Maragliano answered, smiling at the brusqueness of the interrogation.

\'Then what we want to know, sir, without wasting any time over it, is just this: Here\'s my brother. He wants to be made into a sculptor. Will you take him for a pupil, and if so, what\'ll your charge be? He\'s brought some of his drawings along, for you to look at them. Will you see them?\'

Maragliano smiled again, this time showing all his white teeth, and looked with an air of much amusement at Colin. The poor fellow was blushing violently, and Maragliano saw that he was annoyed and hurt by Sam\'s brusqueness. So he took the portfolio with a friendly gesture (for he was a true gentleman), and proceeded to lay it down upon his little side-table. \'Let us see,\' he said in Italian, \'what the young American has got to show me.\'

\'Not American,\' Colin answered, in Italian too. \'I am English; but my brother has lived long in America, and has perhaps picked up American habits.\'

Maragliano looked at him keenly again, nodded, and said nothing. Then he opened the portfolio and took out the first drawing. It was the design for the Cephalus and Aurora—the new and amended version. As the great sculptor\'s eye fell upon the group, he started and gave a little cry of suppressed astonishment. Then he looked once more at Colin, but said nothing. Colin trembled violently. Maragliano turned over the leaf, and came to the sketch for the bas-relief of the Boar of Calydon. Again he gave a little start, and murmured to himself, \'Corpo di Bacco!\' but still said nothing to the tremulous aspirant. So he worked through the whole lot, examining each separate drawing carefully, and paying keener and keener attention to each as he recognised instinctively their profound merit. At last, he came to the group of Orestes and the Eumenides. It was Colin Churchill\'s finest drawing, and the marble group produced from it is even now one of the grandest works that ever came out of that marvellous studio. Maragliano gave a sharper and shorter little cry than ever.

\'You made it?\' he asked, turning to Colin.

Colin nodded in deep suspense, not unmixed with a certain glorious premonition of assured triumph.

Maragliano turned to the little group, that stood aloof around the clay of the Calabrian Peasant, and called out, \'Bazzoni!\'

\'Master!\'

\'See this design. It is the Englishman\'s. What think you of it?\'

The scholar took it up and looked at it narrowly. \'Good;\' he said shortly, in an Italian crescendo; \'excellent—admirable—surprising—extraordinary.\'

Maragliano drew his finger over the curve of the Orestes\' figure with a sort of free sweep, like a sculptor\'s fancy, and answered simply, turning to Colin, \'He says true. It is the touch of genius.\'

As Maragliano said those words, Colin felt the universe reeling wildly around him, and clutched at Sam\'s arm for support from falling. Sam didn\'t understand the Italian, but he saw from Colin\'s face that the tremor was excess of joy, not shock of disappointment. \'Well,\' he said inquiringly to Maragliano. \'You like his drawings? You\'ll take him for a pupil? You\'ll make a sculpt............