When the fashion set in, wandering dealers and touring collectors made haste to buy. They spread themselves over the country; knocked at cottage doors in out-of-the-way places in Tuscany, begged a glass of milk, admired the plates on the kitchen dresser, and offered to buy at a few francs apiece. The contadino soon found he had something good, and the price rose to ten francs each. Still the plates were admired by tired travellers resting in out-of-the-way cottages drinking a glass of milk. The price rose incontinently to twenty, thirty, fifty francs, until the peasants discovered a gold-mine in their old kitchen crockery, and now their stock is sold out. To-day the plates are found only in the hands of dealers, and good specimens command prices anywhere between a hundred and two hundred and fifty francs each. The owner of the Montelupo plate over the cottage door asked sixty francs for his family treasure. My friend borrowed a ladder, that he might have it down to examine. "No," said the owner; "you must buy it where it is, and pay for it first." Federico’s fancy was caught with the pretty toy; he submitted to the hard terms, and paid the sixty francs. Little Grosso now mounted the ladder to bring down the plate. "I can’t move it; it is cemented into the wall," he called to the new comer, standing below. So he borrowed a hammer and chisel, and ran nimbly up the ladder again and began chipping round the plate. Immediately the whole village was on the spot, standing round, excited, chattering, watching the job. A noisy man, the cock of the village, slung himself forward and shouted strenuously. He demanded to know what they were doing: "That plate has been there for over a hundred years. It is a very important piece, and is worth much money. It is of great value. Who has bought it? What have you paid for it?" "I have bought it," said my friend; "I have given sixty francs for it, and as you think it so valuable, I will sell it to you for sixty francs. Will you have it at the price I gave for it?" Federico has a lovable disposition. He takes life placidly. He takes taxes placidly, he takes bad trade placidly, he takes the war placidly, he takes a human tornado placidly. The noisy man exploded--shouted louder and louder, and scattered his arms about in the air, gesticulating like the sails of a windmill racing in a stiff breeze, but he did not buy the village treasure. Grosso on the ladder kept on chipping round the plate, the crowd watching him critically.