'GALLI VAN T' is welcome, and will be 'welcomer' when he again visits us in another letter like this:
DEAR CONTINENTAL: I have a friend who is not an artful man, though he be full of art; and yesterday evening he told me the following:
'In my early days, when I took views of burly farmers and their bouncing daughters in oil, and painted portraits of their favorite horses for a very moderate honorarium, and in short, was the artist of a small country town—why, then, to tell the truth, I was held to be one of the greatest painters in existence. Since studying abroad, and settling down in New-York mdash;—'
'And getting your name up among the first,' I added.
'Never mind that—I'm not 'the greatest painter that ever lived' here. But in Spodunk, I was. Folks 'admired to see me.' I was a man that 'had got talent into him,' and the village damsels invited me to tea. There were occasional drawbacks, to be sure. One day a man who had heard that I had painted Doctor Hewls's house, called and asked me what I would charge to paint his little 'humsted.' I offered to do it for twenty dollars.
'He gave me a shrewd gimlet-look and said:
'Find your own paint—o' course?'
''Of course,' I replied. What color?'
''Why, the same color you now have,' was my astonished answer.