Our home, simple though it was, and afflicted always with the pressure of harsh poverty, was veritably a treasure-house of potential antiques. It was impossible to enter any room without coming under their subtly stimulating influence—even the bathroom contained, from my earliest recollection, the most perfect specimen of the Garfield tin tub I have ever seen, and the incidental plumbing, though hidden, according to the mode of the moment, under a mask of painted pine, was in entire harmony with the spirit of this dominating piece. Our mantel, in addition to the figurines already mentioned and illustrated, was laden with the tokens of my parent’s discernment and discretion. There was an all but priceless decalcomania picture on varnished wood, portraying the glories of Niagara Falls; there was a wealth of companion pieces, illustrating the Natural Bridge, Ausable Chasm, the Town-Hall of Darien, Connecticut, and an especially rare piece [_circa_ ’84] purporting to be merely a souvenir of Sulphur Springs Grove, Erie County, New York, and long since unobtainable except at auctioneers’ sales of large and unusually complete collections. I inherited, among other treasures, my father’s unusually well-preserved file of Police Gazettes, running back to that celebrated issue in which Lillian Russell’s portrait appeared for the first time. The man, simple and unpretentious as he was, possessed a true genius for preserving such memorabilia and discarding items of little or no value. These pink pages were his pride and treasure through dark days of stress and privation; he handled them reverently, even when they were fresh from the press, and insisted that those of his patrons who examined them should treat them with circumspection. Invariably, with the advent of a new issue, the previous one, tenderly smoothed and flattened, was laid away in the closet, to be bound when occasion permitted. Connoisseurs have told me that I erred in parting with this collection when I accepted the proposals of that prince of antiquers, Morton Fitz, in 1913. I realize that the file must inevitably have appreciated heavily in value with the passage of another decade, but I have no regrets. It was too difficult for me to look over those ageing pages without yielding to the weakness of tears. _Eheu, fugaces_ ... not even in the recent era of display of certain anatomical details could the eye rest so happily on opulent, artless curves ... the flesh-tones, too, thanks to the happy selection of the paper, were poignantly realistic. I am not sorry that I parted with them all. I am, always, an antiquer ahead, and these had become antiques of the past. _Ave_, and farewell.