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Sapphires in My Life 41
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star
sapphire, or rather two explanations. One theory is that there are
within the stone tubular cavities, and the other that there are
crystalline minerals, arranged in a definite manner. Either of these
would produce the star effect.
Now,
the best market for fine star stones, rubies or sapphires, is at the
present moment the United States of America. Most gems pass first
through the hands of European dealers before finding their way to the
New World, but because the American dealers, who more or less
specialise in these freaks of Nature, are most disÂcriminating in the
choice of gems, and because with them price is no object, it is
therefore not surprising that the bulk of the higher-grade stuff finds
its way straight to America. I do not think this is altogether fair,
because the merchants who are willing to handle inferior grades should
also be given an opportunity of handling the good stuff, and the
ultimate result may well be that consignees in London and Paris will
refuse to handle exclusively poor goods that any customer of taste
would utterly reject.
It
is always useful and sometimes entertaining to have a sense of humour.
Sometimes it discovers even in petty annoyances a fruitful source of
amusement.
When
a foreign visitor goes ashore in Colombo on the island of Ceylon, where
by rights the very roads should be strewn with more gems than decorate
the pages of the Thousand and One Nights' Entertainment, he is at once surrounded by a mob of evil-smelling and noxiously perÂsistent gem touts. Rudeness does not help at all in rid-
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