He was sketching his design of a Galatea and Polyphemus on the wall; for the wall was only whitewashed, and covered already with the multiform vagaries whether of master or pupils,--caricatures and demigods, hands and feet, torsos and monsters, and Venuses.

The rude creations, all mutilated, jarring, and mingled, gave a cynical, mocking, devil-may-care kind of aspect to the sanctum of art.

It was like the dissection-room of the anatomist.

The boy's sketch was more in harmony with the walls of the studio than the canvas of the master.

His nymph, accurately drawn, from the undressed proportions of the model, down to the waist, terminated in the scales of a fish.