10 
HOUSE & GARDEN 
WHY IS AN ANTIQUE? 
Which Reveals How the Heir Gets in Heirloom, How Second-Story 
Bill Helps the Collector, and How to Buy and Value Antiques 
ROLLIN LYNDE HARTT 
A ntiquarians may gasp and econo- 
. mists wail, but history, which cannot 
tell a lie, records that on the 29th ultimo 
Mrs. "Rastus Jones, of the colored persua¬ 
sion, invested one dollar and fifty cents 
at the Civic Bethel’s strictly cash sales¬ 
room and came out “toting” a hundred-year- 
old mahogany chair. 
It was a treasure. 
More than that, it had been nicely mended 
and varnished. For the Bethel, whose aim 
it is to untramp tramps, achieves that noble 
design by making them tinker the rubbish 
you and I so magnanimously send in. Once 
tinkered, it sells for what it will fetch, down 
yonder in the slums, and the profits un¬ 
tramp more tramps. A jolly arrangement 
all around. It rids us of our rubbish. It 
benefits retired roadsters. It supports the. 
Bethel. Incidentally, it now and then sup¬ 
plies colored ladies with antiques. 
And yet Mrs. ’Rastus was by no means in 
high spirits on the 29th ultimo. She grum¬ 
bled, and history transcribed verbatim this 
growl of repentance: “Ah’s done made a 
sho’ ’nuff chump o’ mahseff to buy dat low- 
down, ole-fashion’ ahticle : foh de Lawd, Ah 
has. Nex’ time. Ah’s gwine blow two dol- 
lahs, an’ be up-to-date an’ classy.” 
So you may imagine the lady’s astonish¬ 
ment when, on the 30th ultimo, she resumed 
her labors at Mrs. Norman Daingerfield’s 
town house, and there, in the Daingerfield 
drawing-room, beheld an object that 
prompted a cry of, “Golly! Dat’s de very 
spittin’ image ob my chair!” 
Now, it is possible for chairs to fool col¬ 
ored ladies, as well as white, but everlast¬ 
ingly impossible for chairs to fool history. 
Those two were mates. And it was Mrs. 
’Rastus, not Mrs. Daingerfield, who had the 
better chair of the two. 
At Carney’s antique shop, where the 
Daingerfield antique had been “picked up 
for only ninety-three dollars, incredible 
though it sounds, my dear,” you will not 
catch them mending their chairs. They bang 
them around, and had persecuted this par¬ 
ticular chair till it wobbled on its pins. 
A Dabble in Antiques 
I could poke fun at Mrs. Daingerfield with 
keen joy, except that I, too, have dabbled in 
antiques. For example, there was that hun¬ 
dred-year-old house I rented. Quoth the 
Raven—but first hear me. 
Upon my word, it was the sweetest old 
ark the heart of man could wish—a regular 
“birthplace,” with stately white pillars, ro¬ 
mantic, square-paned windows, and, over 
the entrance, the most adorable of hand- 
carved lunettes. Inside, the white wainscot¬ 
ing would show a single broad plank running 
tlie whole length of a low-stud room. The 
doors had latches instead of knobs. Huge 
fireplaces yawned gloriously. The floors 
were “all hills and valleys.” Up attic and 
down cellar, you saw hand-hewn timbers. 
Here and there, quaint, built-in cupboards 
piqued the fancy; and the stairway—a per¬ 
fect love of a stairway it was, with white 
Drawings by Jack Manley Rose 
Back of the pawnbroker, like as not, 
loomed the figure known to the police as 
Second-Story Bill 
spindles and all that. Every way you looked, 
the place absolutely bewitched you. 
I am out now (may the saints be praised !) 
and asking, with a wonderment that surges 
from the depths of an exasperated soul, 
“Why is an antique?” 
On those hill-and-valley floors, not an 
article of furniture but teetered. Down 
those ancient chimneys came myriads of 
flies. The fireplaces, designed by ancients 
who were geniuses at architecture, but driv¬ 
elling idiots at warming houses, sent nine- 
tenths of the heat skyward, and I had not 
contracted to toast the zenith. Thin doors, 
so charming with their exquisite panels, let 
sound through as indulgently as the cellar 
let in water. I bailed the furnace. And 
those beautiful, square-paned windows — 
impossible to lower the top sashes. The an¬ 
cients abhored ventilation. It was they who 
enabled a humorist to write, truthfully, 
“Why is the air so pure in the country? 
Because the farmers sleep with their win¬ 
dows shut.” 
As you see, I am in no position to throw 
stones at Mrs. Daingerfield. Escaped from 
my genuine antique, I took refuge amid 
things “up-to-date and classy,” but I still re¬ 
spect in myself the antiquary passion that 
was the well-spring of my woes. I have 
merely discovered that in the realm of sen¬ 
timent there is “a point beyond which.” I 
own up to a profound inability to sentimen¬ 
talize while bailing a furnace, nor can I sen¬ 
timentalize at all triumphantly while perched 
on a seat perilous in Mrs. Daingerfield’s 
drawing-room. And there are instances 
where I go so far as to question the sweet 
reasonableness of the sentiment itself. 
HP 
1 Til 
B 
(pig 
Mr. Carney opened his heart with re¬ 
markable candor. "Where do we get our 
stuff? Off liars." 
Several years ago, my old classmate Mr. 
Worth Sayre was motoring through Brit¬ 
tany. Not far from Quimperle, he saw an 
aged Breton sitting outside his cottage in full 
Breton costume. What a chance for a pic¬ 
ture ! Sayre snatched up his camera, 
alighted, and, with elaborate salaams, ap¬ 
proached the Breton. 
Pose ? 
Why, parfaitement, Monsieur! 
After which, the peasant enticed Mr. 
Sayre indoors. There, lo and behold, stood 
the finest 14th Century armoire in existence. 
By dint of many a visit and many a par¬ 
ley, Sayre at last got possession of the 
heirloom. Heaven alone knows what he 
paid—he’s never told. 
But Heaven is also aware that there has 
since appeared in Le Figaro a very illumi¬ 
nating article by M. Marcel Prevost, who 
had traced the 14th Century armoires to 
their source in a Paris factory. Thence 
they journey to Brittany, where picturesque 
peasants are in reality agents. 
It was cheerful to learn this. Never 
again shall I weep for the dear, dead 14th 
Century. It is having the time of its life. 
However, I shall not tell Sayre. Nor 
shall I hint to Mrs. Daingerfield that, within 
my observation, chairs have seldom lasted 
a hundred years. If there are humbug an¬ 
tiques—oh, well, hypocrisy is the homage 
vice pays to virtue, and there are plenty 
of honest antiques. What interests me is 
our tender regard for the genuine. 
Come, come! We do not overvalue old 
clothes. Why do we so worship old furni¬ 
ture, old houses, old jewels? Because of 
their beauty? The reproductions are as 
beautiful. Because of their age? The 
stones in the pasture are older! Because of 
their associations? Most enthusiasts think 
so, but what, pray, are those associations? 
What indeed? 
Association and Second-Story Bill 
My good neighbor, Mrs. Peirson White, 
has a necklace, very tasteful and pretty, 
and at the same time very old. In a com¬ 
municative mood, one evening, her husband 
confessed where he got it. “That sort of 
luck takes patience. I tried twenty repu¬ 
table dealers and found nothing that quite 
suited. Then I thought of pawnshops, and 
made the rounds. Still nothing satisfac¬ 
tory-. But I was not discouraged. I went 
back to the pawnshops again and again, 
and finally at Goldberg’s I hit the very 
thing. Madge was delighted. You know 
she doesn’t value antiques for their mere 
beauty. She cares a thousand times more 
for their associations.” Associations ! Good 
lack, 7uhat associations? 
Back of the pawnbroker, like as not, 
loomed the figure of a celebrity known to 
the police as Second-Story Bill. And it might 
hardly have altered matters had White 
bought the necklace at a reputable shop. 
I have made, the rounds among pawn¬ 
brokers myself, sleuthing for clues. Every- 
{Contimied on page 66) 
