In the course of our adventures at home we found that tea-collectors were more numerous than we should have dreamed them to be, perhaps because the subject embraced collecting in almost every field--furniture, old silver, china and pottery, pewter, brasses, books, prints, and what not; to say nothing of collectors of Oriental tea things, as, for instance, the lady who has seven hundred and thirty-two interesting Japanese tea-pots, the equally interesting lady who has a collection consisting of as fine as possible a tea-cup of every sort of porcelain and ware of which tea-cups have been fabricated since the memorable days following the presentation of two pounds of tea to King Charles II by the East India Company. Another collector has gotten together a great number of fine Japanese color-prints, the subjects of which have to do with the tea ceremony, and yet another gentleman “goes in” for the Cha-no-yu (tea ceremony) pottery of Japan. Probably the most interesting collection of tea-caddies in America is that owned by Mr. Frederick H. Howell of New York. Tea-caddies offer to the collector an entertaining hobby, for although they are by no means common, they are still to be “discovered” in many of those nooks that long since have, perhaps, given up other collectable things. I remember once dwelling with enthusiasm on the pleasures of collecting tea things. “I have a little hobby along that line myself,” remarked one of the group, “teaspoons.” “Don’t you have to be careful?” was the question the man next to him could not refrain from putting. But perhaps our friends are not always as sympathetic with the collector’s pursuits or as courteously attentive, and there is always a time to stop before one becomes a bore! CHAPTER V CUP-PLATES It is surprising how rare the cup-plates of the eighteenth century and the early nineteenth century have become, considering their universal use during that period when they were regarded as necessary and fashionable accessories to the tea-set. In the days of our great-grandmothers the etiquette of tea-drinking was markedly different from that which maintains in our own day. Then the tea-cup occupied much the position that the tea-bowl still holds with the Chinese, and the saucer that of the tiny Chinese cup. In other words--we blush to confess it!--our tea-drinking ancestors used the saucers of their tea-cups to cool their tea in, and while the saucers were so utilized, tiny plates (like the plates of a doll’s tea-set) were employed as holders for the cups, thus to protect the polished top of the tea-table or, perhaps, the trays of satinwood from being stained by the moist cup rims.