=Counters.=--Counters have been used in card games from quite early times. They were frequently of engraved metal. In the reign of James I., we are told by Horace Walpole, one Nicholas Hilliard was licensed for twelve years to engrave card counters on which was the Royal portrait. In later reigns similar counters were so engraved. Those of the time of Queen Anne bore a great resemblance to the obverse of the then current coins. Sets of counters were frequently supplied in metal boxes, the exteriors of which were often decorated by engravings. It should be clearly understood that metal card-counters--old and modern--are quite distinct from commercial counters or jettons. =Couvre de Feu.=--The French term, literally, cover of the fire, became the name of the metal shield or cover with which the fire was shut down in the days of the Norman kings. From the same root term the English curfew is derived. It was the curfew bell that sounded the signal for the _couvre de feu_ to be brought out and lights and fires to be extinguished. These metal plates, so frequently engraved all over, are among the rarities of domestic curios (see p. 113). =Damascene.=--The process of inlaying steel or other metal work with silver or gold beaten into the incised metal. To damascene (also spelled damasken) was a process first emanating from Damascus--hence its name. =Dialling.=--A dial plate is made by fixing to a flat surface a stile or gnomon, which forms with the horizon an angle equal to the latitude of the place in which it is to be used. When the gnomon is in position a line is drawn upon the surface of the plate so that the shadow of the stile falls exactly upon it at noonday, the plane through the stile and the sun coinciding with the meridian. It cannot be too clearly understood by users of old sundials that dial plates used in any other latitude than that for which they were constructed must necessarily be inaccurate. =Ember Tongs.=--These little tongs were formerly used to take up the hot embers from among the ashes of a dying fire. They were constantly in use in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, many being decorative, the handles often being fashioned to serve the purpose of a pipe stopper.