[When the ancient monkey vase was first found it was shown to an eminent Egyptologist, not in the ordinary way as a valuable antiquity, but a few matches were placed in it (_see_ No. 6), and it was put quietly upon the table in front of him in the evening when the party were smoking. However, he was not to be taken in, but at once recognised it as a valuable antīca.] Entering casually into conversation with my friend, I led up to the subject of antiquities. He was expressing his views freely, and I waited patiently. During a pause I slipped my hand into my pocket, brought out one of the specimens and pushed it across the table towards him. A scornful smile came over his face. “One of your forgeries, I suppose,” he remarked. I said, “I should like to have your opinion on the object.” He examined it carefully, and then laid it down. I passed another across to him, and then the remaining two. One by one he discarded them, giving it as his opinion that the large scarab was a forgery for the following very sound reasons, bearing in mind the excellence of the old Egyptians’ work. The inscription, he said, was not very well done: the two holes on the side were not usual in heart scarabs: the head was badly made and turned to one side; the work on the feet was clumsy. The small scarab he classed as imitation for the following reasons. The two antelopes are supposed to be alike, but one is larger than the other, and has a larger neck and ears. The branches of a tree over the back of the antelopes were irregular in size, one being small and one large. A round eye appears on the under surface of the scarab, which should have had a duplicate on the opposite side. The back and head, he decided, were very good. The monkey, which was shown to him with a few matches placed in the receptacle before it, was declared to be a shameless fraud, and he wondered that I should take up my time in collecting such obvious imitations. When he was shown the photograph which had been taken of a common vase from the mantelpiece of a house, and compared it with the specimen he was examining, he sarcastically inquired if I bought all my antiquities in a cheap Jack’s booth at home. Meekly I produced the sacred eye, which he would scarcely deign to look at, contemptuously pushing it aside on account of a small white mark in the blue. “Have you got any more?” he inquired. Modestly I said that I had not, when, with some muttered remarks about the strangeness of the pursuits taken up by people with more time on their hands than sense, he strode away. There had gathered round us a little silent group of listeners who seemed rather to sympathise with me, although, of course, thinking that I had brought all this upon myself.