Page:Chats on old prints (IA chatsonoldprints00haydiala).pdf/58

 recently acquired information. He is no mean judge of character, and shows a new side to each printseller in turn. He knows intuitively the axiom that the printseller learns from his customer, so he employs finesse and diplomacy in his wanderings. Maybe many a reader will look in the mirror and discover this man to be none other than himself. Perhaps he will forgive the betrayal of many of his secrets. To put these suggestions as to the byeways of print-collecting into print is to strike at one's own carefully guarded privacy. We are fellow sufferers. No more the golden exclusive enjoyment of the domain, the gates are now open for him who will to enter.

Then there is the collector who embarks upon the hobby solely and entirely with the idea of making an investment. He buys to-day for to-morrow's rise in value. His knowledge of markets and of fluctuations is equal to that of a stockbroker's clerk. He keeps a careful record of great sales, and has a fine leaning to catalogues with marked prices. His love for a print vanishes in a moment if it has depreciated in the market. The ring of the auctioneer's ivory hammer is sweet music to him. He has become the possessor of a fine velvety proof of S. W. Reynolds the Elder, but his momentary glow of exultation is tortured with the haunting thought that to-morrow its value may fall in the auction-room. He is a dealer at heart. His love for prints is confined to their monetary worth. He is a dangerous competitor because his knowledge is as compendious as Ruff's "Guide to the Turf." He might have been a bookmaker or anything else, but he is a buyer and