"I am going to make some remarkable statements," the young man
continued, "but each of those statements is capable of demonstration
here and now. Don't hesitate to interrupt if there is a question in
your mind, because everything I shall say is vital to each of you as
bearing on the utter destruction of the world's traffic in diamonds.
It is coming, gentlemen, it is coming, just as inevitably as that
night follows day, unless you stop it. You _can_ stop it by
concerted action, in a manner which I shall explain later."

He paused and glanced along the table. Only the face of Mr. Czenki
was impassive.

"Since the opening of the fields in South Africa," Mr. Wynne resumed
quietly, "something like five hundred million dollars' worth of
diamonds have been found there; and we'll say arbitrarily that all
the other diamond fields of the world, including Brazil and
Australia, have produced another five hundred million dollars' worth
--in other words, since about 1868 a billion dollars' worth of
diamonds has been placed upon the market. Gentlemen, that represents
millions and millions of carats--forty, fifty, sixty million carats
in the rough, say. Please bear those figures in mind a moment.

"Now, suddenly, and as yet secretly, the diamond output of the world
has been increased fiftyfold--that is, gentlemen, within the year I
can place _another_ billion dollars' worth of diamonds, at the
prices that hold now, in the open market; and within still another
year I can place still another billion in the market; and on and on
indefinitely. To put it differently, I have found the unlimited
supply."