`Year after year Leonardo worked at that wonderful
fresco of the Last Supper. Sometimes for weeks
or months he never touched it, but he always
returned to it again. Then for days he would
work from morning till night, scarcely taking time
to eat, and able to think of nothing else, until
suddenly he would put down his brushes and stand
silently for a long, long time before the picture.
It seemed as if he was wasting the precious hours
doing nothing, but in truth he worked more
diligently with his brain when his hands were idle.

Often too when he worked at the model for the
great bronze horse, he would suddenly stop, and
walk quickly through the streets until he came to
the refectory, and there, catching up his brushes,
he would paint in one or perhaps two strokes, and
then return to his modelling.

Besides all this Leonardo was busy with other
plans for the Duke's amusement, and no court fete
was counted successful without his help. Nothing
seemed too difficult for him to contrive, and what
he did was always new and strange and wonderful.

Once when the King of France came as a guest
to Milan, Leonardo prepared a curious model of a
lion, which by some inside machinery was able to
walk forward several steps to meet the King, and