so intent upon; his object being that the dealer may not awaken to a
sense of the coveted article's value by a stranger seeming to be
interested in it. After examining the decoy bird, he returns it, and
carelessly asks to look at _the_ article. Whatever the value set upon
it may be, he tenders exactly the half, the matter being usually
settled by what is technically known as "splitting the difference."
Delighted with his purchase, he carries it home, and persuades his
friends he has got to the blind side of the dealer, and is in
possession of the real thing for the fiftieth part of what others give
for it. He proceeds to enlighten his friends on the subject, telling
them to follow his example, which they invariably do.

Scarcely a day passes without my hearing of a Cremona having been
secured in the manner I have attempted to describe. My experience,
however, teaches me that the whole thing is a delusion, and that the
thoroughbred Cremona does not fall away from the companionship of its
equals, once in the space of a lifetime, and that when this does
happen, the instrument rarely falls to the bargain-hunter.

The following exceptional incident will, I hope, not be found wanting
in interest as bearing on this theme. A votary of the Violin purchased
an old Fiddle for some two or three pounds from a general dealer in
musical instruments in his neighbourhood. He was well satisfied with
his acquisition; and after subjecting it to a course of judicious
regulation, so great were the improvements effected that the vendor
regretted having sold it for such a trifling sum, and the more so when
it was whispered about that the instrument was a veritable Amati--a
report, by the way, very far wide of the mark, as it was simply an old
Tyrolean copy.

Some little time after the occurrence related, the lover of Violins
heard that the same instrument-seller from whom he purchased the
imagined Amati, had secured a job lot of some half-dozen old Fiddles,
the remnant of an old London music-seller's stock, and that he was
offering them for sale. Our hero decided to pay another visit, and
judge of the merits of the new wares, with a view to a second
investment. Upon presenting himself to the local seller of Violins, he
was at once informed that if he selected _any_ instrument from the
lot, he must be prepared to pay 10 pounds, the dealer having no
intention of again committing his former error in selling a Cremona
for some forty shillings.