The collector of antique French and Italian and other foreign furniture is to be congratulated upon other benevolent circumstances that prevent supplies of wonderful old things from approaching exhaustion. So long as there are any ancient houses in France and Italy, just so long will the manufacturers of French and Italian antiques have enough working material of absolute genuineness. This is due to the fact that the wainscoting and all the concealed woodwork of these venerable houses have been heartily eaten by many generations of true worms. Whenever a house is pulled down, therefore, the Old Masters of furniture-making flock to the scene and acquire large stocks of truly worm-holed wood. This, when incorporated into the magnificent chests, tables, sideboards, and other pieces which are destined to fill the antique-shops of Paris, Rome, and Florence, catches and holds the eye of the purchaser. It is obvious to any one—or at least to any amateur—that any piece of furniture which contains such intricate and symmetrical worm-holes must have been made before the worms started to bore, and must, therefore, be very ancient. The old, worm-eaten wainscoting is used to make the shelves and drawer-bottoms of sideboards which are known as _credenzas_ in Italy and _crédences_ in France. It is also drawn on for the backs and bottoms of chests, for picture-frames, for wooden stirrups, and for almost any beautiful, wonderful old thing Milady or Mimister brings home to exhibit upon the sitting-room table. The fronts and tops of chests and sideboards may, however, be made of new wood and will probably look just as well. For example, the new wood can be carved even more prettily than the old, and when the carving is finished, the manufacturer turns over the product to three or four muscular hirelings whose sole duty is to injure furniture. They are armed with large sticks of various shapes, and their activities are limited to chastising the wood with extreme severity. In this way the chests and sideboards acquire, in a matter of half an hour, the scratches and indentations for which slow centuries might otherwise be required. The wood is given the proper color by boiling it with walnut rind. Or it may be given the peculiar irregularities of great age by applying nitric acid, which eats into the surface, and then coloring the marks of the acid with permanganate of potash. [Illustration: PLATE XI COLONIAL KITCHEN SINK FROM THE OLD PALAVER THOMPSON MANSION IN HAVERHILL The metal work, all done by hand, is in a remarkable state of preservation. There was no spigot; but here we find an illustration of the ingenuity of our forefathers. Professor Kilgallen has come to the conclusion that the water was all poured in from a bucket and entirely by hand. ]