inally, it is only too
probable that you pay also a heavy secret commission to the disinterested
friend who happened to remark there was an uncommonly fine object in
Y----'s gallery. By a cheerful acquiescence in the suggestions that are
daily made to you, you may accumulate old masters as impersonally, as
genteelly, let me say, as you do railway bonds. But, of course, under
these circumstances you must not expect bargains.

Now, in objects that are out of the fashion--a category including always
many of the best things--and if approached in slack times, the great
dealers will occasionally afford bargains, but in general the
economically minded collector, who is not necessarily the poor one, must
intercept his prey before it reaches the capitals. That it makes all the
difference from whom and where you buy, let a recent example attest. A
few years ago a fine Giorgionesque portrait was offered to an American
amateur by a famous London dealer. At $60,000 the refusal was granted for
a few days only, subject to cable response. The photograph was tempting,
but the besought amateur, knowing that the authenticity of the average
Giorgione is somewhat less certain than, say, the period of the Book of
Job, let the opportunity pass. A few months after learning of this
incident, I had the pleasure of meeting in Florence an English amateur
who expatiated upon the beauty of a Giorgione that he had just acquired
at the very reasonable price of $15,000. For particulars he referred me
to one of the great dealers of Florence. The portrait, as I already
suspected, was the one I had heard of in America. Forty-five thousand
dollars represented the difference between buying it of a Florentine
rather than a London dealer. Of course, the picture itself had never left
Florence at all, the limited refusal and the rest were merely part of the
usual comedy played between the great dealer and his client. On the other
hand, if the lucky English collector had had the additional good fortune
to make his find in an Italian auction room or at a small dealer's, he
would probably have paid little more than $5,000, while the same purchase
made of a wholly ignorant dealer or direct from the reduced family who
sold this ancestor might have been made for a few hundred francs. With
the seekers obviously lie all the mystery and romance of the pursuit. The
rest surely need not be envied to the sought. One thinks of Consul J.J.
Jarves gradually getting together th