His conversation with the guileless neighbor held us spellbound, he represented himself as a political census taker and hinted darkly that we were to be the candidates for high offices on the Woman’s Rights ticket at the next election. He found that farmer Rice was a bitter Democrat. This was a sharp blow, for neither he nor we knew one thing about the private life of the Democratic candidate—not even where he lived, nor indeed on our part one thing about politics anyway. Nothing daunted, he searched a newspaper which he chanced to have, and invented an imaginary home for the Democratic Governor, which would doubtless have answered every purpose, with the strong points on Free Trade and Protection which he drilled into us. We very prosaically, however, preferred our old honest plan, and whether because of our suspicious appearance on foot at such a great distance from any village, or because we made an extremely inauspicious entrance, awakening a very deaf old lady from a very sound nap, we could not buy the china either, but we saw it, a whole chest full, and the sight was well worth the long journey. Thus it maybe seen that china hunting, like many another hobby, is not a wholly ennobling pursuit. Strange and petty meannesses develop in you, envious longings, you have “an itching palm,” you learn to be secretive and dissembling, “to smile and smile and be a villain.” You learn to hide your trail, to refuse to give information to other sportsmen, to conceal the location of your hunting-grounds, to employ any wile to gain attention and entrance. Two worthy young men, without a fault, save an overweening and idolatrous love for old china, can attribute their fall from the paths of honesty and truthfulness to china hunting. Searching one day in a country town, one of these china hunters descended from the carriage and pounded the knocker of a fine but somewhat dilapidated country mansion. A pompous and repelling old gentleman of extreme deafness and reticence opened the door. What was the amazement and mortification of the waiting friend in the carriage to hear the bold intruder roar in his loudest and most persuasive voice, “I have come to see whether you have any old china, or know of anyone who has old china to sell,” and as the door was about to be slammed, he added, “My friend, the late Judge V——, of Worcester, told me that if anyone in the country knew of old china and relics it was you.” [Illustration: Millennium Plate.]