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A wealthy lover of music paid the highest price ever recorded for a piano. It was no ordinary piano. Its price was fifty thousand dollars. For a single painting a Westerner paid fifty-five thousand dollars. Another collector, whose name is known in the humblest homes, expended fifty thousand dollars for a silver trinket only four inches high.

An enthusiastic American happened to live in London at the time the North Pole was discovered. For an indefinite period of time the North Pole was seemingly discovered by two Americans. That controversy is ended and dead, but the memory of the dinner given in London by the proud American will live for many years. Thirty guests accepted the invitations, and, upon entering the home of their host, found themselves in a barren and icy waste. The prow of an ice-bound ship protruded from one side of the wall. Pale electric lights flashed coldly from a score of points. Icebergs towered above the dinner table, surmounted by polar bears. In the centre of the room was a huge oval table to represent a solid block of ice and thereon the brilliant feast was served. The waiters moved about noiselessly in the costumes of Eskimos, hooded in the skins of animals and clad in the white fur of polar bears. The dinner was a tremendous success. It cost the American ten thousand dollars and not one word of criticism was passed, except by the suffering waiters in their heavy furs on a warm mid-summer day.