I was lucky enough to get out of his clutches. I did not touch diamonds again for years.
My
second venture into the brilliants market came when I was associated
with a prominent French pearl dealer for the purpose of tapping new
sources of pearl supplies in the South Seas. Wherever I went on that
trip I was asked whether I had anything to offer in diamonds. I
accordingly and optimistically drew my Paris associate's attention to
the possibilities of increasing our profit, and asked him to ship some
diamonds of the right sort.
He
had a first-class brain, had my friend Jacques. Nevertheless, he
envisaged my South Seas customers as a series of native rajahs and
dusky chiefs, and he shipped to me as his first consignment a golden
elephant with turquoise eyes and diamond-spattered trunk. The next
week he sent me an ivory cane carved at the top into the semblance of
an Indian god with diamonds set in eyes, nostrils and ears. There was
no third consignment, or he might have sent me a meerschaum studded
with brilliants or something even more hopeless than he did send. I
gave diamonds a wide berth for another eight years.
Then
one day in New York I was introduced to a prominent Antwerp diamond
cutter who had risen from poverty to possession of the biggest diamond
factory in Belgium and had unlimited credit. This man again broached
diamonds to me. "I am surprised that you should be content with pearls
when you could, with your connections, build up a diamond business in
the Far East second to none."
I told him dryly of my first two experiences with dia-
