when I'm painting my level best, like I used to could, mine are about
like that. But people don't know the difference about him or about me;
and mine, as I told your Jew friend, are plenty good enough for
every-day purposes. Used to be, anyway. Nobody can paint like his best.
Think of it, young feller, you and me is painters and know what it
means--jest a little dirty paint on white canvas, and you see the
creeping of the sunrise over the land, the breathing of the mist from
the fields, and the twinkling of the dew in the young leaves. Nobody but
him could paint that, and I guess he never knowed how he done it; he
jest felt it in his brush, it seems to me.'

"After this outburst little more was to be got from him. In a word, he
had gone to pieces and knew it. Beilstein had cast him off; the works in
the third manner hung heavy in the auction places. Leaning over the
table, he asked me, 'Who was the gent that said, "My God, what a genius I
had when I done that!"?' I told him that the phrase was given to many,
but that I believed Swift was the gent. 'Jest so,' Campbell Corot
responded; 'that's the way I felt the last time I saw Beilstein. He'd
been sending back my things and, for a joke, I suppose, he wrote me to
come up and see a real Corot, and take the measure of the job I was
tackling. So up to the avenue I went, and Beilstein first gave me my
dressing down and then asked me into the red-plush private room where he
takes the big oil and wheat men when they want a little art. There on the
easel was a picture. He drew the cloth away and said: "Now, Campbell,
that's what we want in our business." As sure as you're born, sir, it was
a "Dance of Nymphs" that I done out of photographs eight years ago. But I
can't paint like that no more. I know the way your friend Swift felt;
only I guess my case is worse than his.'

"The mention of photographs gave me a clue to Campbell Corot's artistic