64 THI STRAND W AGAZINE,

years to 8% years of age. Itvery oculist had a go at my eyes. I have still signs of the holes in my cars where I wore car- rings, but all to no avail. During this rime my sister read the Bible to me, and

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the clay, for at school in Paris he gained the first prize for modelling a map of South America.

“Every Iill and mountain top, every river and valley was modelled 1 clay,” satd Mr. Sala.

• That's what I cull

practical geography —that’s what [ should like to sce 1 our

. schools to-day. We arnuad & A futsh lood of fealsize provcs Fral o : é v T 0 corintid by o TRy . Thoy wu “would b oll & ., want practical les

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SPECIMEN OF MR, 5ALA'S HEANDWRITING,

-old me childish fairy tales. \When, at last, [ recovered my sight, I had a ycarning to read all that my sister had told me, and T raught myself out of a big history of Iing- land.”

He learned to write as well—practised caligraphy from a black-letter Chaucer. This will account for Mr. Sala's peculiar print-like handwriting. ~ What a happy picture — the little fellow on his knees, with the great volume against the back of the chair, tracing out letter by letter on a piece of paper. His parents’ housc was

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the resort of many forcigners of distinction. At ten yvears of age he could not speak a word of English, and after passing a few years at a school in IFrance, came back to a school here for the purpose of learning the English language. Hce found it more difli- cult than Greek. As a child he wrote short stories—u notable one was a story of travel. But his childish fingers seemed destined for

sons. 1 was sent to a school where lec- tures were object- lessons, We tound something to learn i the green fields and flowers, knowledge m every article of tfurniturce in the house, from the piano to the fire-irons. Why, 1 recad my Greck Testament i a laurel grove ! And when- ever 1 had a spare moment, so surcly was I to be found drawing and modclling.”

So his childhood’s days were passed, and cventually at fourteen he was apprenticed to Carl Schiller—a miniature painter. He also became a pupil at Leigh'’s Art School in Maddox-street. At sixteen he became assistant screen-painter to Beverley, at the Princess’s Theatre. Deverley was a warm-

s p———

MR, SALA,

hearted man. Without taking a halfpenny premium he was virtually young Sala’s in- structor in architectural drawing and per- spective.

“Then my eyes began to trouble me again,” said Mr. Sala. * You sce, when a ficure had to be introduced into a scene 1 was called in to do it. I was almost colour- blind. T put black into everything. In-