My wife determined to take over our fowls into her own jurisdiction; hitherto they had been under my bailiff's care, and he rather resented the change as an implication on his management, until it was explained that she was anxious to undertake the poultry as a hobby. One of the carter boys was detailed to collect the eggs, as some of the hen-houses were in out-of-the-way corners of the yards and difficult to approach. My wife thought the middleman was appropriating most of the profit; she was determined to get as directly to the consumer as possible and, among others, she arranged with the head of a large school for a weekly supply of dairy and poultry produce. All went well for a time until one day the boy, anxious to produce as many eggs as possible, as he received a royalty per dozen for collecting, discovered some nests which my man had set for hatching before he retired from the post. The boy, not recognizing this important fact, came in greatly pleased with an unusually large quantity, and it so happened that the school received the eggs from this special lot. Next morning forty eggs appeared at the boys' breakfast table, and forty boys simultaneously suffered a terrible shock on the discovery of forty incomplete chickens. The head wrote an aggrieved letter of complaint, and though my wife was by that time able to explain the matter, and regret her own loss too of forty chickens, he removed his custom to a more reliable source. This schoolmaster was a collector of antique furniture and china, and, knowing that I was interested, he asked me to come and see some Chippendale chairs he had just acquired. It happened that some months before I had declined to buy four or five chairs that were offered at 10s. apiece. I had not then fully developed the taste for the antique, which once acquired forbids the connoisseur to refuse anything good, whether really wanted or not, and at that time there was much more choice in such matters than at the present day. The chairs were very dilapidated and I did not recognize their possibilities, but I noticed the arms of the elbow chairs were particularly good, being carved at the junction of the horizontal and vertical pieces with eagles' heads. Deciding that I did not want them I sent a dealer to the house and forgot all about the matter. The schoolmaster took me into his drawing-room, and I instantly recognized the set I had refused; they were quite transformed, nicely cleaned, lightly polished, and the seats newly covered. I duly admired them, and on inquiry found that he had purchased them in Worcester from the dealer I had sent to look at them; they cost him £5 each, and I suppose at the present time they would be worth £20 apiece at least.