Where there is mystery there are surely people who wish to solve the mystery, and very curious people are these “detectives of the antique.” The peripatetic antique dealers are in a true sense connoisseurs. They prowl about all sorts of out-of-the-way places; storage houses, auction rooms, in garrets of houses that will be torn down and in cellars of old family dwellings, unoccupied perhaps for generations. They sense the value of a thing the moment they see it. Some of them are scholarly gentlemen who have a great book knowledge, who know more than professors in our universities and curators of our museums. Others know by intuition. And a few have the instinct of a Sherlock Holmes and the sense of adventure of a pirate. Some weeks ago I noted the following advertisement in the American Art News. It sounded mysterious as well as promising: =W A R N I N G!= =The Original Sketch of the Head= for the =Lansdowne Full Length= All Collectors, Museums, Dealers and other interested parties are advised to take no part in the buying or selling of a certain oil painting:-- =Portrait of Washington, by Gilbert Stuart= This portrait head is entirely my personal property. It is now being held by a certain party without my consent, who refuses to return it to me. I wish to warn anyone interested that the present holder of it has not my permission to negotiate its sale and that he cannot deliver title. Very respectfully, J. F. MacCARTHY. =339 Lexington Ave., N. Y. City.= Any portrait by Gilbert Stuart is worth from ten thousand dollars up. That there should be a new discovery of a Gilbert Stuart painting, especially one of George Washington, was a great surprise to me. And I know J. F. MacCarthy. He is one of those ideal antique dealers who could not help being one. Of course he sells the paintings, engravings and etchings he discovers, but I am sure he would prefer to keep them if circumstances did not compel him to earn a living, even as you and I. MacCarthy is a well-known figure in auction rooms all over town. He is well known down on Fourth Avenue, where old clothes, damaged shoes, cheap furniture is sold, together with works of art, tapestries, paintings, as well as in those fashionable auction rooms on Fifth Avenue and Madison Avenue, which look like the orchestra of a theatre, where the visitors sit in comfortable plush chairs.