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THE DUDLEY, OR STAR OF SOUTH AFRICA. 239
took
it up from the floor and offered to buy it, asking what Van Niekirk
would take for it. The simple-minded Boer could not understand what the
meaning of purchasing a stone could be, and he said he would take no
money for it, but that if Mr. O'Reilly had a mind to it, he could have
it.
"
The colonial trader is generally represented as a verneuker of a most
designing and unscrupulous kind, but there are men amongst them whose
right dealing and high character would stand comparison with those of
any men in the world, and no men have a better footing amongst the
Boers than the old-established traders. Mr. O'Reilly is one of them. He
told Van Niekirk that he believed it to be a precious stone and of
value ; he would, therefore, not take it for nothing. It was ultimately
agreed between them that O'Reilly should take the stone, ascertain its
value, and, if found to be a diamond, as O'Reilly suspected it was,
that it should be sold, and the money divided between them. Mr.
O'Reilly took the stone to Colesberg, where he showed it, and he
confidently stated to the people he met at the bar of the hotel that it
was a diamond. He wrote his initials on the window-pane and cut a
tumbler with the stone, and was laughed at for his alleged foolishness,
as many a discoverer had been before him. One of the company took the
stone out of O'Reilly's hands and threw it into the street. It was a
narrow chance that the stone was found again, and, had it not been, it
is quite a question whether the Diamond Fields of South Africa had yet
or ever been discovered in our day. However, the stone was found, and
O'Reilly sent it
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