really had intended to befriend him, he finally ran away to Paris. It was there and not in London that I met him again.
Handicapped
by his fear of the police (unfounded, as it happened), he asked me to
market his goods for him, but I had no clients for tourmalines in
Paris, although I was able to recommend him to a broker who in the end
did help him to part with his stones at a ruinous discount. For he was
in a hurry to realise; the man in a hurry always has bargains to sell.
So far he was on the right side of the fence. But he now took it into
his head to justify himself in the eyes of his benefactor, to which end
he bought a large number of beautifully engraved but worthless mining
shares from a bucket-shop keeper on the run, and sent them back to
London under cover of a piteous note to say that he had been
speculating not wisely but too well.
The
big man in London, unfortunately for him, saw through the trick at once
and was justly incensed. He put Scotland Yard on the track and that was
the end of another little man.
There
is a semi-precious stone, attractive in its own right, much fancied by
those who value its resemblance to diamonds. This is the jargoon, or
more properly, the zircon. The zircon occurs in a greater variety of
colours than any other gem. Besides the white kind, it is found brown,
yellow, blue, pink, red and green. The red variety is called jacinth or
hyacinth. There is a much esteemed peacock-blue zircon which is very
rare indeed. Examples of it are called "specimen stones" and command a
good price in the market.
