son Peintre." My
story was written in the winter of 1907, and it was not until the summer
of 1911 that M. Bourget's delightful tale came under my eye. Clearly the
same incident has served us both as raw material, and the noteworthy
differences between the two versions should sufficiently advise the
reader how little either is to be taken as a literal record of facts or
estimate of personalities.

CONTENTS

A Ballade of Art Collectors

Campbell Corot

The del Puente Giorgione

The Lombard Runes

Their Cross

The Missing St. Michael

The Lustred Pots

The Balaklava Coronal

On Art Collecting

A BALLADE OF ART COLLECTORS

Oh Lord! We are the covetous.
Our neighbours' goods afflict us sore.
From Frisco to the Bosphorus
All sightly stuff, the less the more,
We want it in our hoard and store.
Nor sacrilege doth us appal--
Egyptian vault--fane at Cawnpore--
Collector folk are sinners all.

Our envoys plot _in partibus_.
They've small regard for chancel door,
Or Buddhist bolts contiguous
To lustrous jade or gold galore
Adorning idol squat or tall--
These be strange gods that we adore--
Collector folk are sinners all.

Of Romulus Augustulus
The signet ring I proudly wore.
Some rummaging _in ossibus_
I most repentantly deplore.
My taste has changed; I now explore
The sepulchres of Senegal
And seek the pots of Singapore--
Collector folk are sinners all.

Lord! Crave my neighbour's wife! What for?
I much prefer his crystal ball
From far Cathay. Then, Lord, ignore
Collector folk who're sinners all.

CAMPBELL COROT

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 w