A rather interesting story is told of the manner in which the King, when still little more than a child, acquired a taste for the science of numismatics. One day, he received a _soldo_ bearing the head of Pope Pius IX, which he kept. A little later, finding another, he added it to the first; and, in this way, he ended by collecting fifteen. Meanwhile, his father, King Humbert, presented him with some sixty pieces of old copper money; and he thus formed the nucleus of his collection. Thenceforward, at every anniversary, on his birthday, at Christmas, at Easter, the different members of the royal family, who used to chaff him about his new passion, gave him coins or medals. He made important purchases on his own account; and, finally, in 1900, he doubled the dimensions of his collection at one stroke by buying the inestimable treasure of coins belonging to the Marchese Marignoli, which was on the point of being dispersed to the four corners of the earth. He admits, nevertheless, that the piece that represents the highest value in his eyes is a gold Montenegrin coin struck in the early days of the Petrovich dynasty and presented to him by Princess Helena of Montenegro at the time of their engagement. This coin is so rare that only one specimen is known to exist, apart from that in the possession of Victor Emanuel III; it is in the numismatical gallery at Vienna. The King, moreover, has enriched his collection lately with an exceedingly rare series of coins of the Avignon popes. They were sold at auction at Frankfort; and a spirited contest took place between buyers acting respectively on behalf of King Victor Emanuel, the Pope and the director of our own gallery of medals. It was, therefore, with a very special interest that he visited our mint, whose collection is famed throughout Europe. The director, knowing that he had to do with a connoisseur, had taken a great deal of trouble; in fact, I believe that he intended to "stagger" the King with his erudition. But he reckoned without his host, or rather his guest; and instead of the expert dazzling the King, it was the King who astonished the expert. He surprised him to such good purpose, with the accuracy and extent of his information on the subject of coins, that the learned director had to own himself beaten: "We are school-boys beside Your Majesty," he confessed, in all humility. And I think that this was something more than a courtier's phrase.