"No, indeed!" said Dallas, with a half-laugh; "not I."
"You have never," said Mr. Dieverbrug, looking at him steadfastly from under his bushy eyebrows,--"you have never been in a jewel-house?"
"In a jewel-house?" echoed George.
"What you call a jeweller's shop?"
"Never have been in a jeweller's shop? O yes, often."
"Still you fail my meaning. You have never been in a jeweller's shop as employé, as assistant?"
"Assistant at a jeweller's--ah! thank you! now I see what you're aiming at. I've never been an assistant in a jeweller's shop, you ask, which is a polite way of inquiring if I robbed my master of these stones! Thank you very much; if you've that opinion of me, perhaps I had better seek my bargain elsewhere." And George Dallas, shaking all over, and very much flushed in the face, extended his hand for the case.
Mr. Dieverbrug smiled softly as he said, "If I thought that, I would have bid you go about your business at once. There are plenty of merchants at Amsterdam who would buy from you, no matter whence you came; but it is my business to ask such questions as to satisfy myself. Will you have back your diamonds, or shall I ask my questions?"
He spoke in so soft a tone, and he looked so placid and so thoroughly uncaring which way the discussion ended, that George Dallas could scarcely forbear laughing as he replied, "Ask away!"
"Ask away," repeated Mr. Dieverbrug, still with his soft smile. "Well, then, you are not a jeweller's employé; I can tell that by your manner, which also shows me that you are not what you call swell-mob-man--rascal---escroc. So you come to me with valuable diamonds to sell; my questions are, How do you get these diamonds? Who are you?"