|
THE PEARL
|
||
|
|
||
|
of
the jewel, and sometimes even that is exceeded. The buyer prefers to
have it so because it increases the importance of his possession in the
public mind and paves the way for a good price if he too at any time
should wish to sell.
One
reads constantly in the daily papers of sales where the prices given
are enormously beyond the sums actually paid, for the public like big
figures. Reporters know this and do not fail to supply the demand. For
instance: in an eastern city of the United States, a man while at a
lunch counter found a pearl in the oyster he was eating. He took it at
once to a jeweller of his aquaintance who handed it to a New York
pearl-dealer present and asked him to value it.
The
pearl was large and round but, like all such formations in the edible
oyster, quite devoid of the nacre which constitutes a true pearl. The
dealer so informed them, adding casually, "If it were a true pearl it
would be worth several thousand dollars." An evening paper that day had
a half column story about it with, "A pearl worth five thousand dollars
found in an oyster at a lunch-counter," in
322
|
||
|
|
||