s sold,
a certain Mrs. Smith on Staten Island sued her husband for desertion and
non-support, and in the course of the proceedings it was brought out
that Smith made $10,000 a year painting Corots and Daubignys, and that
the $23,000 picture was one of his latest achievements. I got it for a
little over one hundred dollars. I am really proud of the picture,
because Smith has put into it enough of the Corot quality to deceive
many an expert observer. If I were not in possession of the documentary
proof that Smith painted the picture in 1908, I should myself be tempted
at times to believe that Smith and his wife lied in court and that the
picture is really a Corot.

"But these are the chances," said Cooper, "that every art-lover must
take. I have said that at present I feel perfectly sure that not a
single genuine work has crept in to vitiate my collection. And that is
true. But only a few weeks ago I had a very bad quarter of an hour
indeed over this spurious Tanagra figurine. It had been bought for a
museum not one hundred miles from here by a patron who was a good friend
of mine, and who had paid several thousand dollars for the statuette. I
was in the room with Hawley when Stimson, our very greatest Greek
archaeologist and art-expert, entered, and, catching sight of the little
figure, picked it up, studied it for a few moments, smelt it, licked it
with his tongue, pressed it to his cheek, and handed it back to my
friend with a single, blasting comment--'fake.' We two were incredulous,
but within fifteen minutes Stimson had convinced us that the thing was a
palpable fraud. Quite beside himself with vexation, Hawley lifted up the
statuette and was about to dash it into fragments on the ground, when I
caught his arm. 'Let me have it,' I said; and I carried it home in great
glee.

"Well, a few weeks later I was showing my collection to Dr. Friedheimer
of Berlin, who is a much greater man even than Stimson. The German
savant stopped in fascination before the Tanagra figurine. 'A pretty
good imitation,' I said. He seized the statuette with trembling fingers.
'Imidation!' he shouted. 'Chenuine, chenuine as de hairs on your het.
Himmel, wat a find!' And he proceeded to do what Stimson had done, and
he smelt it and licked it, and rubbed it against his beard, and I am not
sure but that he knocked it against his forehead to test its texture.
And then in his agitation he let the figure fall, and it broke in two on
the floor, and