there, perhaps, I might challenge comparison with any private collector
in the world. I lock them up, for even the best servants may be
tempted."

He took a silver key from his watch chain, and began to unlock and draw
out the drawers. A cry of wonder and of admiration burst from Robert
McIntyre, as his eyes rested upon case after case filled with the most
magnificent stones. The deep still red of the rubies, the clear
scintillating green of the emeralds, the hard glitter of the diamonds,
the many shifting shades of beryls, of amethysts, of onyxes, of
cats'-eyes, of opals, of agates, of cornelians seemed to fill the whole
chamber with a vague twinkling, many-coloured light. Long slabs of the
beautiful blue lapis lazuli, magnificent bloodstones, specimens of pink
and red and white coral, long strings of lustrous pearls, all these were
tossed out by their owner as a careless schoolboy might pour marbles
from his bag.

"This isn't bad," he said, holding up a great glowing yellow mass as
large as his own head. "It is really a very fine piece of amber. It was
forwarded to me by my agent at the Baltic. Twenty-eight pounds, it
weighs. I never heard of so fine a one. I have no very large
brilliants--there were no very large ones in the market--but my average
is good. Pretty toys, are they not?" He picked up a double handful of
emeralds from a drawer, and then let them trickle slowly back into
the heap.

"Good heavens!" cried Robert, as he gazed from case to case. "It is an
immense fortune in itself. Surely a hundred thousand pounds would
hardly buy so splendid a collection."