The Diamond Master

, and listened with puckered brows to a recital of the substance

he would see me again, either last night or to-day. He has not appeared yet, and i

sat for a time w

he observed at last, gravely,

atham impatiently. "That is the ver

vatever as he says," Mr. Schultze continued slowly.

amonds in one year-just the five of us?"

tle while. "Vere does he ged dem? Vere does he ged dem?" he repeated thoughtfully. "Do you believe,

not," was

, dey are somewhere on der record

ngers with a sudden reali

oms department; and come to think of it, the tariff on them would have been enormous, so enormous that-that-" a

Koh-i-noor, der Orloff und der Regent could never haf passed thr

his head; Mr. Schultze sat regardi

he continued slowly, "und dey are nod smuggled in,

e w

produced in

ng into the other's eyes. First he was startled, then th

said flat

s full of gold; und so late as eighdeen hundred und ninedy-four ve didn't know der Klondike vas full of gold. Der greadest diamond field

" Mr. Latham expostulated

You are a diamond dealer, Laadham, bud you don'd know much aboud dem from whey dey come a

minutes later appeared with an inquiry in his beady

"Sid down und draw a long breath, und den de

se?" Mr. Czenki a

finite idea as to where those dia

e unhesitati

hey might have been fo

Mr. Latha

might have been

were any diamonds ev

at

across the James River from Richmond, Virginia. It weighed twenty-four c

m seemed

tonish me,"

Mr. Schultze put in confidently. "Vere else in d

ashed down from the mountains farther in the interior, and, if this is true, there is a substantial basis for the scientific hypothesis that diamond fields lie somewhere in

d in his chair, gripping the ar

ki," he asked deliberately, "that Mr.

ugged his slen

to time great sums of money have been spent in searc

lds, und der Australian fields, und der Brazilian fields, und der fields in India, bud ve don'd know i

sat with impassive face, and his hands at re

r. Latham, I may sugges

manded Mr. Sc

the French scientist

, addressing

er,

small diamonds in a meteor. We may safely assume, from the fact that there were

line of thought and arose with a g

amonds in some meteoric substance some place in this country? A meteor may have fallen anywhere, of course, and it

d his head vigorously

spite of every effort to prevent it; whereas, it is possible that a meteor containing diamonds might have been hidden away easily; and, also, the pro

l!" Mr. Latham burst out irritably. "It

oduced here could have been found anywhere in the world and brought in here- smuggled in or in the usual way-and the secret held against the thousands of men who daily watch th

ht a heavy hand down on the slim shoulde

nows more as all of us pud in a crowd," he d

ries when he was a boy. This was child-talk; he permitted himself to express his opi