As the Painter paused for the sensation to sink in, the Antiquary
murmured soothingly, "Get it off your mind quickly, Old Man," the Critic
remarked that the Campbells were surely coming, and the Patron asked with
nettled dignity how the Painter knew.

"Know?" he resumed, having had the necessary fillip. "Because I knew him,
smelled his stogy, and drank with him in Cedar Street. It was some time
in the early '70s, when a passion for Corot's opalescences (with the
Critic's permission) was the latest and most knowing fad. As a realist I
half mistrusted the fascination, but I felt it with the rest, and
whenever any of the besotted dealers of that rude age got in an 'Early
Morning' or a 'Dance of Nymphs,' I was there among the first. For another
reason, my friend Rosenheim, then in his modest beginnings as a
marchand-amateur, was likely to appear at such private views. With his
infallible tact for future salability, he was already unloading the
Institute, and laying in Barbizon. Find what he's buying now, and I'll
tell you the next fad."

The Critic nodded sagaciously, knowing that Rosenheim, who now poses as
collecting only for his pleasure, has already begun to affect the drastic
productions of certain clever young Spanish realists.

"Rosenheim," the Painter pursued, "really loved his Corot quite apart
from prospective values. I fancy the pink silkiness of the manner always
appeals to Jews, recalling their most authentic taste, the
eighteenth-century Frenchman. Anyhow, Rosenheim took his new love
seriously, followed up the smallest examples religiously, learned to know
the forgeries that were already afloat--in short, was the best informed
Corotist in the city. It was appropriate, then, that my first relations
with the poet-painter should have the sanction of Rosenheim's presence."