an old man, with gray hair and spectacles, and a large hooked nose, like one of Rembrandt's "Misers," seated in a small shop, surrounded by the rarest treasures exquisitely set. But when he arrived at the number which the polyglot had given him as Mr. Dieverbrug's residence, he found a small shop indeed, but it was a bookseller's, and it was not until after some little time that he spied a painted inscription on the door-post directing Mr. Dieverbrug's visitors to the first floor, whither George at once proceeded. At a small wooden table, on which stood a set of brass balance weights, sat a man of middle height and gentlemanly appearance dressed in black. The Hebraic character was not strongly marked in any of his features, though it was perceptible to an acute observer in the aquiline nose and the full red lips. He raised his eyes from a small red-leather memorandum-book or diary which he had been studying, as Dallas entered the room, and gave his visitor a grave salutation. "Am I addressing Mr. Dieverbrug?" said Dallas, in English. "I am Mr. Dieverbrug," he replied, in the same language, speaking with perfect ease and with very little foreign accentuation, "at your service." "I have been recommended to come to you. I am, as you have probably already recognized, an Englishman, and I have some jewels for sale, which it may, perhaps, suit you to buy." "You have them with you?" "Yes, they are here;" and George took out his cherished case and placed it in Mr. Dieverbrug's hand. Mr. Dieverbrug opened the case quietly, and walked with it towards the window. He then took out the stones and held them to the light, then taking from his waistcoat pocket a small pair of steel nippers, he picked up each stone separately, breathed upon it, examined it attentively, and then replaced it in the case. When he had gone through this operation with all the stones, he said to George: "You are not a diamond merchant?" "No, indeed!" said Dallas, with a half-laugh; "not I." "You have never," said Mr. Dieverbrug, looking at him steadfastly from under his bushy eyebrows,--"you have never been in a jewel-house?" "In a jewel-house?" echoed George. "What you call a jeweller's shop?" "Never have been in a jeweller's shop? O yes, often." "Still you fail my meaning. You have never been in a jeweller's shop as employé, as assistant?" "Assistant at a jeweller's--ah! thank you! now I see what you're aiming at. I've never been an assistant in a jeweller's shop, you ask, which is a polite way of inquiring if I robbed my master of these stones! Thank you very much; if you've that opinion of me, perhaps I had better seek my bargain elsewhere." And George Dallas, shaking all over, and very much flushed in the face, extended his hand for the case.