Many of you, after your first look at TIME's taxpayer-in-the-wringer cover (TIME, March 10), may have felt like the man at a Denver newsstand, who picked up his copy and exclaimed: "My God, I'm on the cover!"

It wasn't just the taxpayers who felt that way. A number of Internal Revenue collectors and employees told us they enjoyed the cover picture and story as much as anyone. V. Y. Dallman, collector in Springfield, Ill., said of the story: "All of it needs to be said, but the collector cannot possibly say it. It cleared up many things for the public." "Very well done, timely, very well worth reading," was the reaction of Paul J. McKinnon, division chief in the Boston office. Marion H. Allen, collector for Georgia, said: "It was a very interesting and informative story on taxes from an historical standpoint. It also gave me an insight into the background of income taxes which I had never had." San Francisco Collector Charles F. Masarik reported: "I noticed a group of our female employees gathered around the magazine, laughing at the cover. It was really good."

The only qualified dissent we heard was that of an Internal Revenue Bureau official in Washington. "Your cover picture showed the taxpayer going into the wringer feet first," he complained. "We always put them in head first."

When the California Palace of the Legion of Honor announced a showing of its most important acquisition in four years--a little-known Renoir they called Coco and Gabrielle (TIME, March 17)--TIME's San Francisco bureau suggested the exhibition as a likely art story. For further background material TIME asked its Los Angeles bureau to interview Gabrielle, one of the painter's favorite models, now living in Hollywood. She had been a nurse for Renoir's son Claude ("Coco").

Reporter Elaine St. Maur found the former model a modest, sincere woman, "still a subject, 35 years later, to interest an artist." Gabrielle glowed, said Newswoman St. Maur, when she spoke of her old life with the Auguste Renoirs. The artist was easy to pose for, let her talk as much as she wished, Gabrielle recalled. He sketched in his compositions lightly and went right to work with his colors, worked fast, knew exactly what he wanted. Asked whether she had liked the many paintings Renoir had done of her, Gabrielle shrugged, said: "Oh yes, but really I didn't pay much attention. We were surrounded with his work, you know, and it all seemed so natural a part of our everyday life."

But when she was shown a color print of the Renoir to be unveiled in San Francisco, Gabrielle studied it for a long time, then said she was not the woman in the picture and that the baby was not Coco. She even doubted that it was a real Renoir.

Museum officials and dealers knew they had an actual Renoir, but after hearing Gabrielle's story, retreated halfway. TIME's checking had convinced them that the painting needed a new name--perhaps the jawbreaking title used by a previous owner: Woman Guiding a Child's First Steps Toward a Chair on Which There Is a Kitten.

. . .

Not long ago I wrote you about a company which was able to hire three engineers because of stories which had appeared in TIME. Since then I've heard about the other side of the coin--an ambitious young man who got the job he wanted after reading a TIME story.

He is Dick Firestone, 21, a night student at New York University, who read about the high-pressure promotion ideas of Ted Cott, general manager of WNBC and WNBT in Manhattan (TIME, Feb. 11). Firestone decided he wanted to work for Cott, so he rented a homing pigeon from a pet shop, had it delivered by messenger. When Cott opened the cage-like packing case, he saw a capsule attached to the pigeon's leg. In it was a note from Firestone asking for a job. Also enclosed was an application blank with two choices: "1) I would like to interview you on ----at---- o'clock," and "2) I think you are inane, inept, presumptuous and completely odious and will not interview you under any circumstances."

Firestone, who had sent neither his address nor his phone number, asked Cott to "select one, attach to the pigeon's leg and send him home." Cott received the note on Friday, replied by the pigeon messenger, setting the appointment date for the following Monday, and hired Firestone two days later.

Cordially yours,

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