also, and who advertised the boy's fondness for study everywhere.

If don Rafael were a serious, melancholy lad, that defect was chargeable
to his interest in books, and at the Casino, the "Party's" Club, he
would say to his fellow-worshippers:

"You'll see something doing when Rafaelito grows up. That kid is going
to be another Canovas."

And before all those rustic minds the vision of a Brull at the head of
the Government would suddenly flash, filling the first page of the
newspapers with speeches six columns long, and a _To Be Continued_ at
the end; and they could see themselves rolling in money and running all
Spain, just as they now ran their District, to their own sweet wills.

Never did a Prince of Wales grow up amid the respect and the adulation
heaped upon little Brull. At school, the children regarded him as a
superior being who had condescended to come down among them for his
education. A well-scribbled sheet, a lesson fluently repeated, were
enough for the teacher, who belonged to "the Party" (just to collect his
wages on time and without trouble,) to declare in prophetic tones:

"Go on working like that, señor de Brull. You are destined to great
things."

At the _tertulias_ his mother attended evenings in his company, it was
enough for him to recite a fable or get off some piece of learning
characteristic of a studious child eager to bring his school work into
the conversation, for the women to rush upon him and smother him with
kisses.