"I've made my fortune, Sol," he declared somewhat hysterically. "All this thing needs is some proper financing. Watch me, and I'll show you what I can do."
He set out to demonstrate what he could do; but something seemed to have gone wrong with the formula. He tried again, with equally unsatisfactory results. He tried three and four times more, but he produced no diamonds. Something inside him turned colder every time he failed.
"I tell you, I saw him do it, Sol," he babbled frantically. "He mixed the things up himself, and somehow he hit on the proportions that I've been lookin' for all these years."
"Maybe he has der diamonds palmed in his hand ven he puts it in der tin, Louie," suggested Mr. Solomon cynically.
Louie sat with his head in his hands. The quest for synthetic wealth faded beside another ambition which was starting to monopolise his whole horizon. The only thing he asked of life at that moment was a chance to meet the Saint again — preferably down a dark alley beside the river, with a blunt instrument ready to his hand. But London was full of men who cherished that ambition. It always would be.