"So I said to him, 'There's been a corner in rubies, but it broke, and that is the reason why I can give them at that price.' He didn't know what a corner was, and when I explained he took a note-book out of his pocket and wrote something in it. 'I am making a collection of Americanisms for the Czarina,' he said. 'By the way,' he added, 'what is a Sam Ward!' I told him. He laughed, and put it down—"
"His throat?"
Mr. Fairbanks glanced at Jones with unconcealed irritation: "Dr. Hammond, sir, says that punning is a form of paresis."
"Be careful about that epsilon; it's short."
"Well, Mr. Jones, you ought to know how to pronounce the word better than I, for you have the disease and I haven't. Gentlemen, I insist—"
But Jones had begun to muse again. "That fat little brute is a type," he told himself. "I must work him in somewhere. I wonder, though, if I had not better leave him and go up to the baccarat. It might be more remunerative. It would be amusing," and Alphabet smiled at the fantasy of his own thought, "it would be amusing indeed if he tried to prevent me." He put his hand over his eyes and let Mr. Fairbanks ramble on.
"You see," he heard him say, in connection with something that had gone before, "a man in my business has to be careful. Now, there are rubies and rubies. I only handle the Oriental stones, which are a variety of the hyaline corindus. They are found in Ceylon, in Thibet, and in Burmah among the crumblings of primordial rock. But I have seen beauties that were picked from waste lands in China from which the granite had presumably disappeared. They are the most brilliant and largest of all. There is another kind, which looks like a burned topaz: it is found in Brazil and Massachusetts. Then there is the Bohemian ruby, which is nothing but quartz reddened by the action of manganese; and there are also imitations so well made that only an expert can tell them from the real. I keep a few of the latter on hand so as to be able to gauge a customer. Well, gentlemen, the Russian picked up two of them, which I placed before him, and put them to one side. He knew the false article at a glance. Your friend, Jones, that simpleton Nicholas Manhattan, would have taken one of the imitation if I had not prevented him, but this fellow was so clever about it that he won my immediate respect."
"Jones, indeed!" Alphabet muttered. "Why, the brute is as familiar as a haberdasher's advertisement!" He looked at him again: his face was like a brandied peach that had fallen into the fire, and his head was set on his shoulders like an obus on a cannon. "Bah!" he continued, "what is the use in being irritated at a beggar who is as ugly as a high hat at the seashore?"—"When you do me the honor to address me, sir," he said, aloud, "I shall be obliged if you will call me Mr. Jones."
"Tut, tut!" the little man answered, and then, without further attention to Alphabet, he continued his tiresome tale:
"When the Russian had examined the rubies very carefully a second time, he said, half to me and half to himself, 'I think they will do.' Then, looking up at me, he added, 'Mr. Fairbanks, you do not make a hundred-thousand-dollar sale every day, do you?' 'No, your Excellency,' I answered,—you see, I made a dash at Excellency; Prince seemed sort of abrupt, don't you think?'—'No, your Excellency, it does not happen over once a week.' He smiled at that, and well he might, for the biggest sale I had previously made amounted to but nine thousand dollars. 'Mr. Fairbanks,' he continued, 'the grand duke is rich, as you well know. I am not. You will understand me the better when I tell you that at present, unless cholera has visited Russia since I left (and I hope it has), there are exactly twenty-nine people in Petersburg who bear the same name and title as myself. Now, if the grand duke purchases these rubies, what will my commission be?' 'That is squarely put, your Excellency,' I answered—'squarely put. Will his Imperial Highness pay cash for the rubies?'"