Your insipid profile of Bill Ruprecht, the boss of Sotheby’s (“The Figures Man,” March 1, 2008), offers next to nothing of interest about the curious world or art auctions. Although Sotheby’s and its supposed arch-rival, Christie’s, only pulled out of the collusion scandal a decade ago, any connoisseur of that world will tell you that the next scandal is always just around the corner. As you can learn from Don Thompson’s The $12 Million Stuffed Shark: The Curious Economics of Contemporary Art (London: Aurum, 2008), the art world has “conflict of interests” written all over it. Which is why its top end, where auction houses reign, stumbles from one scandal to another for centuries. In this context, perhaps the only interesting morsel you dish out is Ruprecht’s “explanation” of the Sotheby’s failed partnership with eBay: “Selling top art over the net doesn’t work.” Indeed, the net is not so good for the art of fiddling.