“Drums! I wonder if any living man has heard a greater variety than I? What a lot of them! I have heard them calling a jehad in the Sudan. Tumpi-tum-tump! tumpitum-tump! Makes a white man's hair stand up when he hears it in the night. I don't know what it is, but the sound drives the Oriental mad. And that reminds me--I've had them in mind all day--the drums of jeopardy!” “What an odd phrase! And what are the drums of jeopardy?” asked Kitty, leaning on her arms. Odd, but suddenly she felt a longing to go somewhere, thousands and thousands of miles away. She had never been west of Chicago or east of Boston. Until this moment she had never felt the call of the blood--her father's. Cocoanut palms and birds of paradise! And drums in the night going tumpi-tum-tump! tumpi-tum-tump! “I've always been mad over green things,” began Cutty. “A wheat field in the spring, leafing maples. It's Nature's choice and mine. My passion is emeralds; and I haven't any because those I want are beyond reach. They are owned by the great houses of Europe and Asia, and lie in royal caskets; or did. If I could go into a mine and find an emerald as big as my fist I should be only partly happy if it chanced to be of fine colour. In a little while I should lose interest in it. It wouldn't be alive, if you can get what I mean. Just as a man would rather have a homely woman to talk to than a beautiful window dummy to admire. A stone to interest me must have a story--a story of murder and loot, of beautiful women, palaces. “Br-r-r!” cried Burlingame. “Why, I've seen emeralds I would steal with half a chance. I couldn't help it. Fact,” declared Cutty, earnestly. “Think of the loot in the Romanoff palaces! What's become of all those magnificent stones? In a little while they'll be turning up in Amsterdam to be cut--some of them. Or maybe Mister Bolsheviki's inamorata will be stringing them round her neck. Loot.” “But the drums of jeopardy!” said Kitty. “Emeralds, green as an English lawn in May after a shower, Kitty. By the way, do you mind if I call you Kitty? I used to.” “And I've always thought of you as Cutty. Fifty-fifty.” “It's a bargain. Well, the drums to my thinking are the finest two examples of the green beryl in the world. Polished, of course, as emeralds always should be. I should say that they were about the size of those peppermint chocolate drops there.” “Have one?” said Kitty. “No. Spoil the taste of the pipe.” “You ought to spoil that taste once in a while,” was Burlingame's observation. “But go on.”