During my stay in Paris, a Russian Prince, who had been living in great splendor in that city, suddenly died, and his household and personal effects were sold at auction. I attended the sale for several days in succession, buying many articles of vertu, and, among others, a magnificent gold tea-set, and a silver dining-service, and many rare specimens of Sevres china. These articles bore the initials of the family name of the Prince, and his own, “P. T.,” thus damaging the articles, so that the silver and gold were sold for their weight value only. I bought them, and adding “B.” to the “P. T.,” had a very fine table service, still in my possession, and bearing my own initials, “P. T. B.” While dining one day with my friend, Dr. Brewster, in Paris, all the company present were in raptures over some very fine “Lafitte” wine on the table, and the usual exclamations, “delicious!” and “fruity!” were heard on all sides. When I went to the south of France, the Doctor gave me a letter of introduction to Lafitte’s agent, Mr. Good, at Bordeaux, and I was shown through the extensive cellar of the establishment. The agent talked learnedly, almost affectionately, about the choice and exclusive vineyards of the establishment, and how the stones in the ground retailed the warmth derived from the sun during the day throughout the night, thus mellowing and maturing the grapes, and resulting in the production of a peculiar wine which was possible to no other plot of ground in the entire grape country. I afterwards learned, however, that this exclusive establishment bought up the entire wine product of all the vineyards in the region round about--it was like the celebrated “Cabana” cigars in Havana. One day a friend was dining with me in Bordeaux and I called for a bottle of “Lafitte,” which, purchased on the very ground of its manufacture, was of course genuine and deliciously “fruity.” It was very old wine of some famous year, and the bottle as brought up from the bin was covered with cobwebs and dust. But while we were sipping the wine and exclaiming “fruity” at proper intervals, I happened to take out my knife and quite inadvertently cut off a bit of the label. The next day when my friend was again dining with me I called for another bottle of the peculiar Lafitte which had so delighted us yesterday. It came cobwebbed and dust-covered and was duly discussed and pronounced deliciously “fruity.” But horrors! all at once, something caught my attention and I exclaimed: “Do you see that cut label? That is the very bottle which held the rare old wine of yesterday; there is the ‘ear-mark’ which I left with my knife on the bottle”--and I summoned the landlord and thus addressed him: “What do you mean, you scoundrel, by putting your infernal _vin ordinaire_ into old bottles, and passing it off upon us as genuine ‘Lafitte?’”