“If Campbell Corot had been a stronger character, he might have made some stand against the fraudulent success his second manner was achieving.  But, unhappily, in those experimental years he had acquired an experimental knowledge of the whisky of Cedar Street.  His irregular and spend-thrift ways had put him out of all lines of employment.  Besides, he was consumed by an artist’s desire to create a kind of picture that he could not hope to sell as his own.  Nor did the voice of the tempter, Beilstein, fail to make itself heard.  He offered an unfailing market for the little canvases at twenty-five and fifty dollars, according to size.  There was a patron to supply unlimited colours and stretchers, a pocket that never refused to advance a small bill when thirst or lesser need found Campbell Corot penniless.  Almost inevitably he passed from occasional to habitual forgery, consoling himself with the thought that he never signed the pictures and, before the law at least, was blameless.  But signed they all were somewhere between their furtive entrance at Beilstein’s basement and their appearance on his walls or in the auction rooms.  Of course it wasn’t the blackguard Beilstein who forged the five magic letters; he would never take the risk, ‘Blast his dirty soul!’ cried Campbell Corot aloud, as he seethed with the memory of his shame.  He rose as if for summary vengeance, to the amazement of the quiet topers in the room.  For some time his utterance had been getting both excited and thick, and now I saw with a certain chagrin that the Glengyle had done its work only too well.  It was a question not of hearing his story out, but of getting him home before worse befell.  By mingled threats and blandishments I got him away from Nickerson’s, and after an adventurous passage down Cedar Street, I deposited him before his attic door, in a doubtful frame of mind, being alternately possessed by the desire to send Beilstein to hell and to pray for the eternal welfare of the only genuine Corot.”

“You certainly make queer acquaintances,” ejaculated the Patron uneasily.

“Hurry up and tell us the rest; it’s growing late,” insisted the Antiquary, as he beckoned for the bill.

“I saw Campbell Corot only once more, but occasionally I saw his work, and it told a sad tale of deterioration.  The sunrises and nymphals no longer deceived anybody, having fallen nearly to the average level of auction-room impressionism.  I was not surprised, then, when running into him near Nickerson’s one day I felt that drink and poverty were speeding their work.  He tried to pass me unrecognised, but I stopped him, and once more the invitation to a nip proved irresistible.  My curiosity was keen to learn his attitude toward his own work and that of his master, and I attempted to draw him out with a crass compliment.  He denied me gently.  ’The best things I do, or rather did, young feller, are jest a little poorer than his worst.  Between ourselves, he painted some pretty