Dr. Barber was authority for the statement that the millefiore paper-weights found their way into America from St. Louis in Alsace-Lorraine (first to produce paper-weights of the sort, _circa_ 1840) and from Baccarat in France. To the manufactories of the latter town we look for the finest of the European millefiore paper-weights. At first the filigree rods, cut or uncut, were imported; but soon American glass-workers turned their attention to the complete production, and we may mark the period of 1860 to 1875 as that of the heyday of American-made millefiori glass. It must not be thought that all the American millefiori glass has been picked up or picked over; there is much of it remaining to reward vigilant search and the collector will find it well worth going after. Out-of-the-way villages in the East and South still secrete many such pieces, and so does the householder of the Middle West; while one finds Pacific-ward examples of the old Glass of a Thousand Flowers that had so great a popularity before the Centennial turned the country to fresh ingenuities. CHAPTER XXVIII ANTIQUES OF PERSIA AND OF INDIA Once upon a time an old gentleman moved into the house across the street. Whence he came no one knew, no one ever came to know. His name was Kyttyle--Major Kyttyle. As midsummer marked his advent, he probably felt properly attired when he appeared on the lawn that first day, to survey his new domain, in a basket-shaped hat of straw and a suit of East-India-looking stuff. Major Kyttyle’s face was seamed and bronzed. I imagine his hair would have been as white as the snows of Dhawalaghiri had it not been as extinct as the Hippuritidæ, revealing a shining pink dome as reflecting as the pool of Anuradhapura at sunset, visible as now and then he would lift his hat to mop his brow. Major Kyttyle’s installation was followed by the arrival of countless foreign-looking trunks and boxes and the neighborhood naturally wondered what on earth the major had in them. Mrs. Minch was of the opinion that a lone man could have no use for such a lot of truck. Mrs. Bittles ventured the opinion that Major Kyttyle might not be so “lone” after all; he might have a family and it might arrive later. “Families” usually did. Mrs. Minch only sniffed. “I can tell a bachelor anywhere,” she declared with conviction. And she could. However, although no family came upon the scene, a whole menagerie arrived one by one, from distant parts, to keep the major company and to scandalize the town. There was a pet monkey, a poll parrot, a Persian cat, and a globe of diaphanous-tailed goldfish the like of which had never been dreamed of thereabouts and which quite put to rout the two gilded minnows owned by the Pickhams, which till then had been the only exotics in the district and had lent a certain distinction to the Pickhams to which, socially, their breeding did not entitle them.