"Halloa, Vandrift," he cried, in his peculiarly loud and piercing
voice; "you're the very man I wanted to meet to-day. Good morning,
Wentworth. Well, how about diamonds now, Sir Gorgius? You'll have to
sing small. It's all up with you Midases. Heard about this marvellous
new discovery of Schleiermacher's? It's calculated to make you
diamond kings squirm like an eel in a frying-pan."
I could see Charles wriggle inside his clothes. He was most
uncomfortable. That a man like Cordery should say such things, in
so loud a voice, on no matter how little foundation, openly in
Piccadilly, was enough in itself to make a sensitive barometer
such as Cloetedorp Golcondas go down a point or two.
"Hush, hush!" Charles said solemnly, in that awed tone of voice
which he always assumes when Money is blasphemed against. "_Please_
don't talk quite so loud! All London can hear you."
Sir Adolphus ran his arm through Charles's most amicably. There's
nothing Charles hates like having his arm taken.
"Come along with me to the Athenaeum," he went on, in the same
stentorian voice, "and I'll tell you all about it. Most interesting
discovery. Makes diamonds cheap as dirt. Calculated to supersede
South Africa altogether."
Charles allowed himself to be dragged along. There was nothing else
possible.
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