A CURIO STORY.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLIV, Issue 13483, 6 July 1907, Page 5 (Supplement)

A CURIO STORY.

-THE BLACK BALL.

A conxoisskuxi arrived as a guest at a country house some years ago. and as it was still early in the evening his hostess asked him if he would like to sec his young chums the children, before going to dress for dinner.

She took him up to the nursery, and there they found the children in high glee, about to play a kind of cricket with a blackened, roundish object which they had found. "Oh, you dreadful children, what are you doing'!"' the mother cried. The connoisseur examined the object which was just about to have served, as a cricket ball, and he told his hostess that, so far as he could see what it was under its coating of grime, it was a valuable piece of glass. The children, said they had found it behind a. beam in the attics of the house, which was quite an ancient mansion. After a little more examination the connoisseur told his hostess that he should not be surprised if the piece of old glass turned out to be worth two hundred sovereigns. "And those dreadful children would have smashed it in another minute !" the mother cried. "And we so hard-tip, and glad to make money of anything She 'Urged the connoisseur to lake the piece of glass up lo London on his return, and submit it to expert valuation. He wisely declined to do that, but he took a sketch of the piece of glass, and showed the drawing to a dealer, who-con-firmed his own opinion, and estimated the value even higher than he had done himself. '■.."'

A few weeks later the object was put up for sale at a. great auctioneer's, and the mother of " those dreadful children" was present. Sho heard the bids mount up, "One. hundred, two hundred, three hundred ami fifty, four hundred, live hundred guineas" — and then she fainted. While she lay unconscious the bids kept an,- .and the ."black ball," as (he children had called it, was knocked down at. last. to a bid, of more than .'■even hundred pounds..... ; The "black ball" was,, in fact, a piece ol the 'earliest European" engraved glass known.—J. H. ; Ybxall, v M.P. ; in. London Opinion.. - "•. . - '~..' '~