gave a little shudder and then said, "I guess I'll have to pay the price if I want to have 'em," and he paid like a little lamb.
When
my boss returned and learned what I had done he reprimanded me
severely. "How could you," he said, "fleece the poor fellow in that
atrocious way, and he one of our best customers!" I expected to be told
to send him at once a credit note for the difference, together with a
letter of apology. But the instructions were never given.
For
something like thirty years I lost sight of the Siberian Olivine King.
Then, one day I met him face to face in the Nanking Road in Shanghai.
He had not greatly changed in appearance, but I had grown from a
carefree smooth-faced youth who thought nothing of adding noughts to
carefully studied prices into a thoughtful middle-aged man with
somewhat of an embonpoint. Yet he spotted me at once, held out his hand
and called me by name. Presently, as though all his pent-up feelings
had at the sight of me burst through thirty-odd years of restraint, he
burst into convulsive sobs. I had known him at the height of his
prosperity and here he was, a fugitive from his native country and in
dire straits—but still proud and independent, as I soon discovered.
Yet
again we met in Paris, for those of the gem-trade cannot help running
into each other in whichever city of the world they may be. And again
we met in London. For a long time thereafter I heard no more, and it
was only after I had written the first draft of this very chapter that
I met him for the latest time. I had been wondering vaguely
