‘Much?’
‘All I have in the world. All! all!’ he repeated, passionately. ‘I am a ruined man. For God’s sake give me half a tumbler of brandy, if you don’t want me to drop down dead in your house.’
The man’s condition was so dejected that Mr. Mosheh, though inclined to believe him a swindler, took compassion upon him. He opened the door leading into his dining-room, and called to his wife.
‘Rachel, bring me the brandy and a tumbler.’
Mrs. Mosheh obeyed. She was a large woman, magnificently attired in black satin and gold ornaments, like an ebony cabinet mounted in ormolu. Nobody could have believed that she had fried a large consignment of fish that very day before putting on her splendid raiment.
‘Is the gentleman ill?’ she asked, kindly.
‘He feels a little faint. There, my dear, that will do. You can go back to the children.’
‘They’re uncommonly clever,’ said Mr. Mosheh, fingering the stones, and testing them one by one, sometimes with his file, sometimes by the simpler process of wetting them with the tip of his tongue, and looking to see if they retained their fire and light while wet. ‘But there’s not a real diamond among them. If you’ve advanced money on ’em, you’ve been had. They’re of French manufacture, I’ve no doubt. I’ll tell you what I’ll do for you. If you’ll leave ’em with me, I’ll try and find out where they were made, and all about them.’
‘No, no,’ answered the other, breathlessly, drawing the parcel out of Mr. Mosheh’s reach, and rolling up the cotton wool, hurriedly. ‘It’s not worth while, it’s no matter. I’ve been cheated, that’s all. It can’t help me to know who manufactured the stones, or where they were bought. They’re false, you say, and if you are right I’m a ruined man. Good night.’
He had drunk half a tumbler of raw brandy, and the brandy had stopped that convulsive trembling which affected him a few minutes before. He put his parcel in his breast pocket, pulled himself together, and walked slowly and stiffly out of the room and out of the house, Mr. Mosheh accompanying him to the door.