[Transcriber's note: _The Gem Collector_ was revised and republished
in 1910 as _The Intrusion of Jimmy_, also known as _A Gentleman of
Leisure_. This version, as published in _Ainslee's_, had two chapters
headed "Chapter XVIII" and ended with "Chapter XIX"; the last two
chapters are now labelled "Chapter XIX" and "Chapter XX." The word
"pubrescent" in Chapter VI has been changed to "putrescent."]





THE GEM COLLECTOR



By P. G. WODEHOUSE

Published in _Ainslee's Magazine_,
December 1909.




CHAPTER I.


The supper room of the Savoy Hotel was all brightness and glitter and
gayety. But Sir James Willoughby Pitt, baronet, of the United Kingdom,
looked round about him through the smoke of his cigarette, and felt
moodily that this was a flat world, despite the geographers, and that