He was not, like his father, deformed, but slender,
delicate, with sparkling eyes and rapid, jerky motions. He looked, as
the saying is, like a rat under a bowl.
One of the proofs of his inventive genius was a mechanical snuffler
that he had made of a shoe-polish tin.
Perico cherished a particular enthusiasm for white walls, and wherever
he discovered one he would sketch, with a piece of coal, processions
of men, women and horses, houses puffing smoke, soldiers, vessels at
sea, weaklings engaging in struggle with burly giants, and other
equally diverting scenes.
Perico's masterpiece was the Don Tancredo triptych, done in coal on
the walls of the narrow entrance lane to La Corrala. This work
overwhelmed the neighbours with admiration and astonishment.
The first part of the triptych showed the valiant hypnotizer of bulls
on his way to the bull-ring, in the midst of a great troop of
horsemen; the legend read: "Don Tancredo on his _weigh_ to the
bulls." The second part represented the "king of bravery" in his
three-cornered hat, with his arms folded defiantly before the wild
beast; underneath, the rubric "Don Tancredo upon his pedestal." Under
the third part one read: "The bull takes to flight." The depiction of
this final scene was noteworthy; the bull was seen fleeing as one
possessed of the devil amidst the toreros, whose noses were visible in
profile while their mouths and both eyes were drawn in front view.
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