upon the Bourse, I have received a grave bow, and have left him in
conversation with an eminent capitalist respecting consols, drafts,
exchange, and other erudite mysteries, where I yet find myself in the
A B C. Thus not only was my valet a free-born Briton, but a landed
proprietor. If the Rothschilds blacked your boots or shaved your chin,
your emotions might be akin to mine. When this man, who had an interest
in the India traders, brought the hot water into my dressing-room, of a
morning, the Antipodes were tributary to me; to what extent might any
little irascibility of mine drive a depression in the market! and I
knew, as he brushed my hat, whether stocks rose or fell. In one respect,
I was essentially like our Saxon ancestors,--my servant was a villain.
If I had been merely a civilian, in any purely private capacity, having
leisure to attend to personal concerns in the midst of the delicate
specialties intrusted to me from the cabinet at home, the possession of
so inestimable a valet might have bullied me beyond endurance. As it
was, I found it rather agreeable than otherwise. He was tacitly my
secretary of finance.

Several years ago, a diamond of wonderful size and beauty, having
wandered from the East, fell into certain imperial coffers among
our Continental neighbors; and at the same time some extraordinary
intelligence, essential to the existence, so to speak, of that
government, reached a person there who fixed as its price this diamond.
After a while he obtained it, but, judging that prudence lay in
departure, took it to England, where it was purchased for an enormous
sum by the Duke of ----, as he will remain an unknown quantity, let
us say X. There are probably not a dozen such diamonds in the
world,--certainly not three in England. It rejoiced in such flowery
appellatives as the Sea of Splendor, the Moon of Milk; and, of course,
those who had been scarcely better than jewed out of it were determined