taking him up for his money and dropping him out of sheer pique
and jealousy because he had so much. He mentioned names, too,
with the most charming freedom, and swore he was as good a man as
the Old Country had to show--PACE the Old Bohemians. To prove it
he pointed to a great diamond in the middle of his shirt-front
with a little finger loaded with another just like it: which of
our bloated princes could show a pair like that? As a matter of
fact, they seemed quite wonderful stones, with a curious purple
gleam to them that must mean a pot of money. But old Rosenthall
swore he wouldn't take fifty thousand pounds for the two, and
wanted to know where the other man was who went about with
twenty-five thousand in his shirt-front and another twenty-five
on his little finger. He didn't exist. If he did, he wouldn't
have the pluck to wear them. But he had--he'd tell us why. And
before you could say Jack Robinson he had whipped out a whacking
great revolver!"

"Not at the table?"

"At the table! In the middle of his speech! But it was nothing
to what he wanted to do. He actually wanted us to let him write
his name in bullets on the opposite wall, to show us why he
wasn't afraid to go about in all his diamonds! That brute
Purvis, the prize-fighter, who is his paid bully, had to bully
his master before he could be persuaded out of it. There was
quite a panic for the moment; one fellow was saying his prayers
under the table, and the waiters bolted to a man."

"What a grotesque scene!"