Now for the sequel, the last act of the drama. This man has an intimate friend, a licensed diamond buyer, a more cold-blooded but less plucky rascal than himself, whose honesty (!) and respectability (!) can be gauged by the fact that he buys next morning in his office, without any haggling and without even demanding the necessary permit, a collection of stones which he introduces in ordinary course to the trade as a “digger’s mixed parcel.” Sometimes, however, the raw native, unfortunately for himself, sells a diamond directly to the low white man, who (if the native be not a regular _customer_) takes advantage of his ignorance and pays him in frequent instances partly in good and partly in base coin. In this way spurious bank notes, of which the accompanying engraving is a _fac-simile_, and gilt medals in imitation of sovereigns with the inscription “Gone to Hanover,” are palmed off, and get into circulation. Again, some very _honest_ licensed buyers would advance money to others lower in the social scale, but also licensed, who would run the risk of purchasing diamonds for them from any one, whether legally qualified to sell or not. Of course if any of these were trapped and the stone traced, the monied men could never be punished, as all their transactions, having been with licensed men, were perfectly legal. I may mention _en passant_ that a great trade was done in gold at this time; certain well-known men, afterward company promoters and directors, trading in and selling on a Saturday night all the gold coins they could gather together during the week, at a premium of three or four per cent., to a class of men who could have no other but an illegal object in view. Such ramifications had this trade! [Illustration] This is the game as it used to be played; now with the new law there is more difficulty, and the process is somewhat altered.