The fact that the reserve price given to the auctioneer is often disclosed to interested collectors, and that it may be divulged by auction-room clerks and so become known, induced collectors with _objets de virtu_ on sale to send friends or agents secretly, in order to run up the bidding to a certain figure. The name long since given to this complacent, secret partner shamming the art buyer is Peter Funk. “Funkism,” if one may be allowed to coin a neologism, certainly has its right to existence and originated in the legitimate desire to protect objects from falling at ridiculous prices in depressed moments of the sale, but it has now become a regular curse, especially at first-class auctions, where by reason of the great interests at stake, the system can be worked to its full magnitude and no expense spared. As an example--and one that to our knowledge worked greatly to the advantage of the seller and not at all to that of the buyer, from whom “funkism” robs all chance of the “fair play” which should be the dominant note in auctions--we may quote the sale of an Italian collection at Christie’s at which, certainly without the knowledge or even suspicion of the auctioneers, Peter Funk played havoc under every form and guise. To make sure that the keen-eyed collectors should not discover the pseudo-collectors, the latter were all imported from the Continent and given strict injunctions to buy at the stated price, to bid without comment and to indulge in none but commonplaces in conversation with the public, the dealer employing them knowing how impossible it is for a non-collector or a feigned art lover to say three words about a work of art, without giving himself away. A good appearance, natural bidding without emphasis or theatrical pose, an occasional “yes” or “may-be” or “hem” when questioned, and a whole string of uncompromising banalities, these are the stock-in-trade of an improvised Peter Funk, who may not be so capable as the professional one but has the advantage of being less easily detected. A clever Peter Funk knows the right moment to run up a price, judging from his competitor’s enthusiasm up to what sum he can safely bid before abandoning the game, and by counting on his opponent’s rashness and impulsiveness runs him up to bids which he afterwards regrets. Risky as it is, rarely does an object remain in the hands of Peter Funk, and if it does, the owner will supply him with the money and withdraw the article, paying the auctioneer’s dues, a comparatively modest percentage. These combined forces in the auction room secretly working as a sequence of traps caused a well-known French collector to propose as an inscription to be put over the door of one of these dangerous dens: “_Ici il y a des pièges à loups_.”