In the old days when a Parisian antique-dealer placed a price of fifteen hundred francs on an article, the prospective buyer offered five hundred for it, and then the argument began. The dealer shed tears; swore that his business standing would be shattered if he dropped a centime in price; mentioned his sick wife most touchingly; gave a long history of the antique in question, showing its great value; beat his breast and begged the purchaser not to ruin him; and ended by selling the article for seven hundred francs. To-day, when a Parisian dealer places a price of fifteen hundred francs on an article and the customer offers five hundred for it, the dealer is more than likely to smile quietly but contemptuously, remark, “M’sieu jests,” and refuse to converse further on the matter. This removes the zest from the proceeding. One does not care to purchase antiques as one purchases collars; one goes elsewhere. III OF THE APPROVED METHOD OF DOING BUSINESS WITH AN ITALIAN DEALER—OF THE ARTISTIC DECEPTION OF THE CUSTOMER—OF THE MASTERFUL PROFANITY AND THE UNCONVINCING ASSEVERATIONS OF THE DEALER—AND OF THE ULTIMATE SATISFACTION OF BOTH PARTIES The purchase of antiques in Italy, in order to be successful, must be attended with enormous amounts of subtlety, gesticulation, swearing, lying, and passion. The proceeding is, or should be somewhat as follows: The antiquer first locates an antique-shop, which he does by walking along a street until he is struck in the nose by a peculiarly fusty odor, faintly resembling recently disinterred boots, and finds the proprietor sitting in a gloomy corner of the shop writing, or pretending to write, in a ledger and giving an excellent but unconscious imitation of a large spider observing the approach of a juicy bluebottle fly. The customer greets the proprietor simply but elegantly, and the proprietor, going on with his writing, replies in an apparently perfunctory and preoccupied manner. Then the customer proceeds to look about. He notes without interest the worm-eaten sideboards and chests, the paintings of anæmic bunches of flowers, the bronze mortars and pestles made in Florence, the Venetian mirrors that make the face look as though it had been run through a clothes-wringer, the venerable priests’ vestments and coatments and pantments, and the hanging silver lamps made out of superb tin; and finally his eye lights on, say, a marble plaque of a Pope’s head from a monastery wall. It has an air, that plaque. He examines it carefully while pretending to scrutinize a small but offensive painting of Saint Mark’s by Moonlight. The buying fever seizes him, and he prepares for action. “Have you not a pair of beaten-iron candlesticks in the Venetian manner, projecting straight out from the wall?” he asks the proprietor, making gestures like a candlestick. He asks this question in order to provide a smoke-screen for his future movements.