ssion, also he has a touching faith in chipped blue and white
cups and saucers, marked with a crescent. Worcester they may be, but
not the right sort of Worcester. And Crown Derby is the very Aldine or
Elzevir of this market. You might as well collect shares in the Great
Montezuma Gold Mine, and expect to derive benefit from the investment.

Gems are among the things that the Duffer may most wisely collect,
for the excellent reason that, in this country, he very seldom
indeed finds any for sale. He cannot come to much sorrow, for lack of
opportunities. In Italy it is different. How many beautiful works of
Art I have acquired in Florence, at considerable ransoms, all of them
signed in neat, but illegible Greek capitals. I puzzled over them with
microscopes. The names seemed to end in [Greek: ICHLES]. I thought
myself a rival of BLACAS, or Lord KILSYTH, or the British Museum. Then
my friend, WILKINS, came in. "Pretty enough pastes of the last century
I see," he remarks. "Pastes!--last century!" I indignantly exclaim;
"why they're of the best period: Sards, all of them signed, but I
can't make out the artist's name." "It is PICHLER," says WILKINS, "he
usually signed, for fear his things should be sold as antiques." I had
to give in about PICHLER (which certainly does not sound very Greek);
"but here," I said, "you can't call _this_ paste, you can't scratch
the back of it." "I know I can't," says WILKINS, examining the
ring, "for a very good reason, because a thin layer of sard has been
inserted behind. But it's paste, for all that."

"Well," I say, "here's a genuine ancient ring, old gold, and a lovely
head of Prosperine in cornelian."

"Well, this _is_ odd," says WILKINS, "I know the setting is genuine,
I have seen it before. But then it had a rubbishy late bit of work in
it, and I was in the _atelier_ when a gem-cutter shaved away the top
of the stone, and copied your head of Prosperine on it from a Sicilian
coin. I can show you a coin of the same stamp in my collection."

[Illustration: "HER MAJESTY'S SERVANTS."

VIEW OF THE STAGE ON THE RE-OPENING OF THE THEATRE ROYAL WESTMINSTER.]

And he showed me it, otherwise I might have remained incredulous.
"These scarabs," he went on, "are from Birmingham, I know the glaze.
That gold Egyptian ring, Queen TAIA's do you say, is Coptic, Cairo is
full of them. That head of CAESAR is a copy from the one in the British
Museum."

"Why, it is rough with age," I said.

"Ay, the