An Italian nobleman went to America to repair his fallen fortunes. He refused to soil his hands in trade; his old family title was the magic key he carried to open the treasure-chests of the New World. So he arrived in America armed with a despatch-box full of introductions to money magnates there. He called upon a banker in New York, and presented a letter of introduction. The banker asked him what he knew about business. "Nothing," replied the nobleman; "I am a cavalry officer." "Sorry I cannot help you," said the banker; "the circus left our town yesterday." The nobleman was floored. Enraged at the magnate’s laconic insolence, he destroyed all letters of introduction contained in his despatch-box and tackled the world on his own. He folded up his family pedigree, laid it in lavender, went into the market and sold jam. In the market-place a long head is a better weapon to fight with than a long pedigree. He worked out his own salvation, and returned home and lived contentedly amongst the orange-groves and sunshine of Southern Italy. *VIII* *THE LURE OF OLD FURNITURE* Eight old Chippendale chairs and two settees sold recently at Christie’s for 5,600 guineas, and report says quickly after the auctioneer’s hammer dismissed the lot they changed hands again at £1,000 profit to the buyer. There must be great charm in old furniture when people scramble for it regardless of cost. I suppose money is dull stuff to own heaps of unless you can exchange it for things that give the heart a passing thrill of pleasure (the great sport is in the making it); and the more money you make, the more it takes you to work up the thrill. A millionaire’s smile is an expensive hobby to cultivate. Gathering a bunch of wild primroses in the sunny April woods gladdens the heart of a child amazingly, and he dreams the pleasure over again in his sleep. It costs over 5,000 guineas to tingle the feelings of a rich man. The child’s outlay is more economical, but it fetches as much enjoyment. Wherein lies the secret charm of old furniture? I love it myself, and for that reason ask the question for the pleasure given in answering it. I am only a trifler in antiques, possessing a few pieces of exquisite old oak of the seventeenth-century period; also several pieces of walnut furniture which are old Italian. The Italian pieces lie fallow in a villa just outside the barriéra St. Domenico, Florence, where we live with them half the year round. Beautiful old walnut furniture counts much more in its own homeland, while the alien oak of England, which we love here, is cold and expressionless in the rooms of an Italian villa on the sunny slopes of Fiesole. It loses its aura in a strange land.