Lingering upon the reminiscence, the Painter sopped up the last bit of
anchovy paste, drained his toby, and pushed it away. The rest of us
settled back comfortably for a long session, as he persisted. "Rosenheim
wrote me one day that he had got wind of a Corot in a Cedar Street
auction room. It might be, so his news went, the pendant to the one he
had recently bought at the Bolton sale. He suggested we should go down
together and see. So we joggled down Broadway in the 'bus, on what looked
rather like a wild-goose chase. But it paid to keep the run of Cedar
Street in those days; one might find anything. The gilded black walnut
was pushing the old mahogany out of good houses; Wyant and Homer Martin
were occasionally raising the wind by ventures in omnibus sales; then
there were old masters which one cannot mention because nobody would
believe. But that particular morning the Corot had no real competitor;
its radiance fairly filled the entire junk-room. Rosenheim was in
raptures. As luck would have it, it was indeed the companion-piece to
his, and his it should be at all costs. In Cedar Street, he reasonably
felt, one might even hope to get it cheap. Then began our _duo_ on the
theme of atmosphere, vibrancy, etc.--brand new phrases, mind you, in
those innocent days. As Rosenheim for a moment carried the burden alone,
I stepped up to the canvas and saw, with a shock, that the paint was
about two days old. Under what conditions I wondered--for did I not know
the ways of paint--could a real Corot have come over so fresh? I more
than scented trickery. A sketch overpainted---or it seemed above the
quality of a sheer forgery--or was the case worse than that? Meanwhile
not a shade of doubt was in Rosenheim's mind. As I canvassed the
possibilities his _sotto-voce_ ecstasies continued, to the vast
amusement, as I perceived, of a sardonic stranger who hovered unsteadily
in the background. This ill-omened person was clad in a statesmanlike
black frock-coat with trousers of similar funereal shade. A white lawn