FIRST STEPS IN A DIFFICULT ART 297
lent pearl-doctor and, incidentally, a good business man. He used to accuse
me of loving my bed too well, but one morning before dawn, Alf, the
Cockney billiard-marker, gave me the tip to go down to the shore at
once, as the mission lugger had just come in and it was a good chance
to be ahead of the other dealers. I did so, but Father Frangot had
already gone ashore to church, and I followed him there and waited,
shuffling back and forth over the red sand at the church door, unkempt,
unÂshaven, and with a temper to match.
When
he came out I invited him to breakfast, and he showed me his pearls,
mostly a lot of seed-pearls with a dash of baroque and one good-sized
knobby piece of nacre which might have been anything. It was upon this,
naturally, that I set my eye. But he refused to put a price on it, and
also refused my offer of $250, win or lose, and half the market value
when it had been worked by the Cingalee doctor.
"It
is a fair offer, coming from a pearl-buyer," he admitted, "but gambling
is. your business, not mine. I'll sell you a half-interest for $500, on
condition that you let me work her myself."
To
this I finally agreed, after demurring that I took two risks, one on
the piece and the other on the cunning of his right hand. That
afternoon he worked the blister in my room, very competently, and the
result was an 80-grain lusÂtrous cream-colored button. I offered him
$2,000 for his half-share. But he insisted that he was ready to give me
$2,500 for mine.
"I thought your mission was poor!" I said. "How will you pay me?"
"I
have no bank balance," he said, "but I will pay you in pearls that I
have put by," and he brought forth a box of mixed pearls. I finally
made him an offer for the pearls that satisfied him, for it was a good
price, and after deducting the sum that was coming to me for my
half-share in the blister, I found I had still $750 to pay on the
composite deal.
As he left my room with his fine button and my nice check securely tucked away under his soutane, leaving me looking
