It is a big shop, as I have said. But you know it—there is no reason to describe it here. A huge place with glass cases like every American shop, and the jewels displayed, as is the almost universal custom in America. Not like some of the foreign places, where you see only a square of black velvet, and the jewel, when you have named the kind you want, is brought out of a vault.
I was in this shop before the long counter that contains the tray of diamonds, when Bartoldi appeared.
Appeared is precisely the word; I did not see him until suddenly he was before me on the other side of the glass case.
He does not look like a jeweler. In fact, he does not look like anybody in active life. He is big and gaunt, and, in spite of the best tailor, he gives one the impression of an immense human body dried out in some desert. But he is alive, all right. I would like to see the man who could fool him about a jewel.
I showed him my diamond. It was a big diamond, unset, and I had it folded up in a piece of tissue paper.
He squinted at it between his thumb and finger.
“Good specimen,” he said, “first-class specimen. You can see the stratifications with your eye.”
He paused; then he went on:
“I never believed chemists could build up a diamond. Of course they build up rubies, and they do it cleverly, deuced cleverly, but you can always tell by the bubbles in them; they can’t get the bubbles out.”
He moved my diamond out a little farther from his eye.