“And you collar half!” gibed the Jew with an ogle of guile; “that's about as cool a stroke of business as I've come across. You don't take into account that the whole is mine, if the concern fell, as you confess, on my own land! And just ask yourself the question: what is to prevent me handing you over this minute to the police, and grabbing the lot? Only I'm not that sort of man—”
O'Hara drew a revolver.
“You talk to me as though I was a schoolboy, sir”, said he sternly. “Be good enough to learn to respect me. I am not less a man of the world than you are, and quite competent to safeguard my own interests. Supposing I was weak enough to permit you to send for the police, the moment they had me I should tell of Hogarth in hiding; they would go for him, and he, after bribing, may be trusted to take wing with the stones, leaving you whistling. Or perhaps you would care to tackle him in person? He would wheel you by the beard round his arm like a Catherine-wheel, I do assure you. All this you see well, and pretend not to. Do let us be honest with each other!”
“Well, I don't want to be hard”, said Frankl, looking sideward and downward, plotting behind an unwrinkled brow, intending to have every one of the diamonds; so did O'Hara, who already had his plot.
“No, don't be hard”, said O'Hara: “I am not. I give you an incalculable fortune; I take the same. Live and let live! Why should two shrewd old fellows like you and me be like the dog which, wanting two bones, lost the one he had? Come, now—give me your hand on it”.
“Well, I'm hanged if you are not right!” cried Frankl, looking up with discovery: “Share and share alike, and shame the devil! That's the kind of little man I am, frank, bluff, and stalwart—Ha! ha! Give me your hand on it, sir!”
“Ha! ha! you are very kind. That is the only way—absolute sincerity—” and they shook hands, hob-nobbing and fraternizing, with laughs and little nods, like cronies.
“Stop—I'll just ring for a drop of brandy—” said Frankl.
“No! no ringing!—thanks, thanks, no brandy—”
“Well, you are as cautious as they make them. Oh, perfectly right, you know—perfectly right”—he touched O'Hara's chest—“not a word to say against that. I am the same kind of man myself—”