On just exactly what percentage the duty was figured he did not know; but it was high enough on the basis of fifty thousand dollars to assume safely that the assessed value of the stones was not less than four times that amount.
Two hundred thousand dollars--laid down, a quarter of a million! Well, why not?
In more than one quarter diamonds were ranked as the soundest kind of an investment.

Furthermore, through personal acquaintance with the "high contracting parties," who were in his own set, he knew it to be true.
He shrugged his shoulders.

The papers, too, had thrown the limelight on Max Diestricht, who, though for quite a time the fashion in the social world, had, up to the present, been comparatively unknown to the average New Yorker.

His own knowledge of Max Diestricht went deeper than the superficial biography furnished by the newspapers--the old Hollander had done more than one piece of exquisite jewelry work for him.

The old fellow was a character that beggared description, eccentric to the point of extravagance, and deaf as a post; but, in craftmanship, a modern Cellini.