“Do you know what’s in it?” asked Case.
“Of course I do; I peeked in as I came along.”
“Well, what is it?”
“Diamonds!”
“Not real diamonds?”
“Certainly not!” Case ventured. “Just fake stones, like the glad-hand men carry. They couldn’t be real diamonds, hustled about in the rain like this!”
“But they are real diamonds,” insisted Clay. “If I ever saw the real thing this is it.”
He untied the brown leather bag, pressed open the mouth with his fingers, and poured a gleaming current of diamonds on the table, where they rolled about like sparks of fire caught and held in captivity. Alex and Case stood dumbly regarding their chum, moving their eyes, presently, from his inscrutable face to the gems on the table. This seemed to them to be a leaf out of a fairy book. It was more fantastic, more unreal, than one of Alex’s ridiculous imaginings.
“I wish Jule was here to see ’em!” Clay spoke, breaking the silence with a long sigh. “He can’t be long in coming now.”
“What are you going to do with them?” asked Alex.