For example, at present I have an average of three correct guesses out of five chances--which is a very high average for one who but a little while ago was the veriest novice at distinguishing between ancient wormholes, as made by a worm, and modern wormholing done by piece-work. I cannot explain to you just how I do this--it is a thing which after a while just seems to come to you. But of course you must have a natural gift for it to start with--an inherent affinity for wormholes, as it were. However, I will say that I did not thoroughly master the cardinal principles of this art until after I had studied under one of the leading wormhole experts in this country--a man who has devoted years of his life just to wormholes. True, like most great specialists he is a person of one idea. Get him off of wormholes and the conversation is apt to drag, but discussing his own topic he can go on for hours and hours. I really believe he gets more pleasure out of one first-class, sixteenth-century wormhole than the original worm did. And as Kipling would say: I learned about wormholes from him. At the outset I must confess I rather leaned toward a nice, neat, up-to-date wormhole as produced amid sanitary surroundings in an inspected factory out in Michigan, where no scab wormholes would be tolerated, rather than toward one which had been done by an unorganized foreign worm--possibly even a pauperized worm--two or three hundred years ago, when there was no such thing as a closed shop and no protection against germs. Whenever possible I believe in patronizing the products of union labor. But the expert speedily set me right on this point. He made me see that in furnishings and decorations nothing modern can possibly compare with something which is crumbly and tottery with the accumulated weight of the hoary years. He taught me about patina, too. Patina is a most fascinating subject, once you get thoroughly into it. Everybody who goes in for period furniture must get into it sooner or later, and the sooner the better, because if you are not able to recognize patina at a glance you are as good as lost when you undertake to appraise antique furniture. When a connoisseur lays hold upon a piece of furniture al-leged to have rightful claims to antiquity the first thing he does is to run his hand along the exposed surfaces to ascertain by the practiced touch of his fingers whether the patina is on the level or was applied by a crafty counterfeiter. After that he upends it to look for the wormholes. If both are orthodox he gives it his validation as the genuine article. If they are not he brands the article a spurious imitation and rejects it with ill-concealed scorn. There are other tests, but these two are the surest ones.