“I have—I have other gems, which came from the same source. Will you buy them, also?”
The merchant bowed: “Certainly, sir.”
Monsieur Lantin said gravely: “I will bring them to you.” An hour later, he returned with the gems.
The large diamond earrings were worth twenty thousand francs; the bracelets, thirty-five thousand; the rings, sixteen thousand; a set of emeralds and sapphires, fourteen thousand; a gold chain with solitaire pendant, forty thousand—making the sum of one hundred and forty-three thousand francs.
The jeweler remarked, jokingly:
“There was a person who invested all her savings in precious stones.”
Monsieur Lantin replied, seriously:
“It is only another way of investing one's money.”
That day he lunched at Voisin's, and drank wine worth twenty francs a bottle. Then he hired a carriage and made a tour of the Bois. He gazed at the various turnouts with a kind of disdain, and could hardly refrain from crying out to the occupants:
“I, too, am rich!—I am worth two hundred thousand francs.”