The diamond merchant tingled with anger. He was not accustomed to being browbeaten even by the representatives of the De Beers Company, yet here was a callow youngster addressing him in this outrageous fashion, betraying, too, an insufferable air of contempt in voice and manner. He glared at Philip in silent wrath for an instant.
The boy smiled. He took from his pocket the paper of diamonds and began to count them. The action said plainly:
"You know you cannot send me away. If I go to your trade rivals you will lose a magnificent opportunity. You are in my hands. No matter how rude I am to you, you must put up with it."
Nevertheless, the Jew made an effort to preserve his tottering dignity.
"Do you think," he said, "that you are behaving properly in treating a man of my position in such a way in his own office?"
In his own office—that was the sting of it.
The head of the firm of Isaacstein & Co., of London, Amsterdam and Kimberley, to be bearded in such fashion in his own particular shrine! Why, the thing was monstrous!
Philip looked him squarely in the eyes.
"Mr. Isaacstein," he said, calmly, "have you forgotten that you caused me to be arrested as a thief and dragged, handcuffed, through the open streets by a policeman? I have spent five days in jail because of you. At the moment when I was praising your honesty you were conveying secret signals to your clerks in the belief that I was something worse than a pickpocket. Was your treatment of me so free from blame at our first meeting as to serve as a model at the second?"
The chair was creaking now continuously; the Jew swung from side to side during this lecture. He strove hard to restrain himself, but the feverish excitement of Saturday returned with greater intensity than ever. He jumped up, and Philip imagined for a second that robbery with violence was imminent.