over
the stones quickly, not wishing to appear ungracious, and in due course
I received back a very handsome pair of links. I admired them,
everybody admired them. And then I got the bill. I had to take an
advance on my month's wages to pay the first instalment. I thought I
would never stop paying, and, in fact I came perilously near to having
no shirt at all in which to wear my beautiful cuff-links; an artistic
denouement in which I took no pleasure at that time.
It
was only later on, when I was broke and alone in London, that I had my
money's worth in forgone meals, and meatless days out of my expensive
cuff-links. In other words, I sold them to pay up two months' arrears
of rent.
Talking
of amethysts, I often wonder where the immense quantity of exquisite
stones in circulation during the early years of this century have gone
to. I and other traders at that time sold amethysts of a quality that
nowadays are not to be seen in the shops nor in use as jewellery. All
the same, as a mere purple variety of quartz the amethyst has managed
to cut a fine figure in the world of gems—a case of natural merit
triumphing over family history! Its hardness, if you are interested in
such technical points, by the way, is seven in the scale,
approximately the same as that of Chinese Jade and only half a point
below that of the emerald.
Amethysts
were very popular in ancient Egypt, and no doubt episcopal rings with
their settings of graven amethysts derive from Egyptian lore, like so
many of the usages and rituals of the Roman Catholic Church. But most
people will be more interested in the amethyst be-
