Then there are Capo di Monte saucers, which, when scaled over the surface of a smooth body of water, will skip several times more than an ordinary china saucer. One should pick out a broad lake and scale all questionable saucers over its surface with an under-arm motion. A saucer, if genuine Capo di Monte, should skip at least eight times before sinking. The lake may then be pumped out with a bicycle pump.†
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† See From Broad-Axe to Peanut-Roaster, by Emmet Gilhooly.
V
OF THE SOURCE OF THE WORM-HOLES IN NEAR-ANTIQUE FURNITURE—OF THE LATEST WORM-HOLE MACHINE—OF THE MODERN METHOD OF PRODUCING ANCIENT WOOD-CARVINGS IN FIVE MINUTES—AND OF THE UNLIMITED FURNITURE OWNED BY MARIE ANTOINETTE
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.
Plate XI