In the little room where I sat there were three other men--two of them were men that I knew, men who dealt in diamonds in a smallish way. The other was a stranger, a thick-set, middle-aged, seafaring sort of man, hard-bitten, dressed in a blue-serge suit of nautical cut; I could tell from his hands and his general appearance that he'd knocked about the world in his time. Just then he was smoking a cigar and had a tumbler of rum and water before him, and he was watching, with a good deal of interest, the other two, who, close by, were showing each other a quantity of loose diamonds which, evidently to the seafaring man's amazement, they spread out openly, on their palms. After a bit they got up and went out, and the stranger glanced at me. Now I am, as you see, something of the nautical sort myself, bearded and bronzed and all that--I'm continually crossing the North Sea--and it may be he thought I was of his own occupation--anyway, he looked at me as if wanting to talk. "I reckon they think nothing of pulling out a fistful o' them things hereabouts, mister," he said. "No more to them than sovereigns and half-sovereigns and bank-notes is to bank clerks." "That's about it," said I. "You'll see them shown in the open street outside." "Trade of this part of London, isn't it?" he asked. "Just so," said I. "I'm in it myself." He gave me a sharp inquiring look at that. "Ah!" he remarked. "Then you'll be a gentleman as knows the vally of a thing o' that sort when you sees it?" "Well I think so," I answered. "I've been in the trade all my life. Have you got anything to dispose of? I see you're a seafaring man, and I've known sailors who brought something nice home now and then." "Same here," said he; "but I never known a man as brought anything half as good as what I have." "Ah!" said I. "Then you have something?" "That's what I come into this here neighbourhood for, this morning," he answered. "I have something, and a friend o' mine, says he to me, 'Hatton Garden,' he says, 'is the port for you--they eats and drinks and wallers in them sort o' things down that way,' he says. "So I steers for this here; only, I don't know no fish, d'ye see, as I could put the question to what I wants to ask." "Put it to me," said I, drawing out my card-case. "There's my card, and you can ask anybody within half a square mile if they don't know me for a trustworthy man. What is it you've got?" I went on, never dreaming that he'd got anything at all of any great value. "I'll give you an idea of its worth in two minutes." But he glanced round at the door and shook his head. "Not here, mister!" he said. "I wouldn't let the light o' day shine on what I got in a public place like this, not nohow. But," he added, "I see you've a office and all that. I ain't undisposed to go there with you, if you like--you seem a honest man." "Come on then," I said. "My office is just round the corner, and though I've clerks in it, we'll be private enough there."