"Confound it all, boy!" yelled the merchant, "what was I to do when a ragged loafer like you came in and showed me a diamond worth a thousand pounds and told me he had dozens, hundreds, more like it? Did you expect me to risk standing in the dock by your side? Who could have given fairer evidence in your behalf than I did? Who proved that you could not have stolen the stones? Whom have you to thank for being at liberty now, but the expert who swore that no such diamonds had been seen before in this world?"
Philip waited until the man's passion had exhausted itself. Then he went on coolly:
"That is your point of view, I suppose. Mine is that you could have satisfied yourself concerning all those points without sending me to prison. However, this discussion is beside the present question. Will you buy my diamonds?"
Isaacstein recovered his seat. He wiped his face vigorously, but the trading instinct conquered his fury.
"Yes," he snapped. "How much do you want for them?"
"I notice that their value steadily increases. The first time you saw this diamond"—and he held up the stone originally exhibited to the Jew—"you said it was worth six or seven hundred pounds. To-day you name a thousand. However, I will take your own valuation for this unimportant collection, and accept fifty thousand pounds."
"Oh, you will, will you! And how will you have it, in notes or gold?"
He could not help this display of cheap sarcasm. The situation was losing its annoyance; the humor of it was beginning to dawn on him. When his glance rested more critically on Philip, the boy's age, the poverty of his circumstances, the whole fantastic incongruity of the affair, forced his recognition.
Not unprepared for such a retort, Philip gathered the stones together, and twisted the ends of the paper. Evidently the parcel was going back into his pocket. He glanced at a clock, too, which ticked solemnly over the office door.
"Here, what are you doing?" cried Isaacstein.