It is difficult to lay down any hard and fast rule by which to test the genuineness of specimens discovered in this haphazard way. Possibly the best is the colour “test.” Does it look right in colour?--not too green and not too steely, for crafty imitators often tend to overdo these qualities. Does it bear too evident signs of age? One has heard of chips and “hair” scratches artificially produced in order to give it that appearance of advanced age which is so grateful to the eye of the collector and the pocket of the vendor. Your best plan is not to jump at once but to take a piece of good glass with you by which to test the find and compare the two as to colour, sharpness of cutting and design, and so on. With caution you may expect now and again to pick up in this casual way some pieces worthy of your attention, and maybe once or twice a specimen worth its place in any collection. For good examples of glass and china have been known to be pawned for a fraction of their worth, neither the depositor nor the pawnbroker having the slightest inkling of their value. But the shops above all others to be shunned by the picker up of unconsidered trifles are the shops whose windows scream, by the aid of plastered tickets, of the “special bargains” to be obtained within. The collector may well abandon hope who enters here; there is probably not a genuine piece in the place. If there is it occupies a prominent place as a decoy duck, and is generally marked at an absurdly low price, the salesman depending on his knowledge of human nature to foist off something else on the unwary or diffident customer. I have had, on occasion, an unholy joy in entering some such place and defeating all the efforts of the salesman to divert my attention, carrying off the only decent piece in the place at a price possibly fifty per cent. lower than its intrinsic value. But such pleasures are not for all nor, indeed, for many. In actual practice the would-be purchaser is generally told that that particular specimen is not for sale, that “a customer had left it to be valued,” “that it had been put in the window by mistake,” or some other cock-and-bull story. Other places to be shunned are the sham Oriental bazaars where Eastern jewellery, Japanese ivories, jars, fans, beads, etc., are sold. Many such establishments cater expressly for the unwary and unwise collector. He will find, if his hobby be glass, glass of all kinds and descriptions from Elizabethan downwards, and will be treated with such charming solicitude and deference that he may well become blinded to the fact that the whole stock is counterfeit, and that the whole atmosphere of the place is specially designed to conceal that awkward but essential fact. The cheat is assisted by the delightful courtesy of the saleswoman.