The Academy reception was approaching a perspiring and vociferous close
when the Antiquary whispered an invitation to the Painter, the Patron,
and the Critic. A Scotch woodcock at "Dick's" weighs heavily, even
against the more solid pleasures of the mind, so terminating four
conferences on as many tendencies in modern art, and abandoning four
hungry souls, four hungry bodies bore down an avenue toward "Dick's"
smoky realm, where they found a quiet corner apart from the crowd. It is
a place where one may talk freely or even foolishly--one of those rare
oases in which an artist, for example, may venture to read a lesson to an
avowed patron of art. All the way down the Patron had bored us with his
new Corot, which he described at tedious length. Now the Antiquary barely
tolerated anything this side of the eighteenth century, the Painter was
of Courbet's sturdy following, the Critic had been writing for a season
that the only hope in art for the rich was to emancipate themselves from
the exclusive idolatry of Barbizon. Accordingly the Patron's rhapsodies
fell on impatient ears, and when he continued his importunities over the
Scotch woodcock and ale, the Painter was impelled to express the sense of
the meeting.

"Speaking of Corot," he began genially, "there are certain
misapprehensions about him which I am fortunately able to clear up.
People imagine, for instance, that he haunted the woods about Ville
d'Avray. Not at all. He frequented the gin-mills in Cedar Street. We are
told he wore a peasant's blouse and sabots; on the contrary, he sported a
frock-coat and congress gaiters. His long clay pipe has passed into
legend, whereas he actually smoked a tilted Pittsburg stogy. We speak of
him by the operatic name of Camille; he was prosaically called Campbell.
You think he worked out of doors at rosy dawn; he painted habitually in
an air-tight attic by lamplight."