The King of Diamonds Part 15

"Right!" he said. "Put them in the safe."

Philip raised no protest this time. He knew that the Jew would keep his word. Indeed, Isaacstein told Samuel to bring him fifty sovereigns, and ere the man returned he began to write on a sheet of letter paper:

"Received from----Here! what's your name?" he broke in.

"Philip."

"Philip what?"

"That will do to-day, thank you. The next time I call I will give you my full name and address."

"Please yourself. I am no judge in this matter," and he wrote on:

"Received from Philip, a boy who refuses any other name, but the same whom I saw in this office on the twentieth inst., and again at the Clerkenwell Police Court on that date, thirty meteoric diamonds weighing in the gross six hundred and twenty-nine carats. I hereby agree to dispose of the same, and to render true account of sales to the said Philip or his agents. My commission to be ten per cent.; the expenses payable by me. I have to-day handed the said Philip fifty pounds in gold, and undertake to place five thousand pounds to his credit to-morrow with my bankers.

"REUBEN ISAACSTEIN."

After completing this acknowledgment he scribbled something else.

"There," he said, with a sigh of relief, "that is not a very formal doc.u.ment, but it will suffice. You can get it stamped to-morrow at Somerset House. Just sign this receipt for fifty pounds."

Philip took the two papers and read them carefully. Isaacstein's handwriting was a scrawl, but legible enough. The boy reached for a pen and signed his Christian name. He was on the point of adding his surname in an unguarded moment, but he felt the Jew's eye on him. So he simply wrote "Philip" across the stamp at the foot of the receipt.

Isaacstein fully appreciated the incident, and knew that his own eagerness defeated the chance, all the more powerful because it was involuntary, of ascertaining the name of this marvelous youth.

Philip gathered up his gold, not without counting the coins. They felt strangely heavy in his pocket, much heavier than the stones they replaced. Yet they formed but a thousandth part of the value of those flintlike pebbles. What a queer problem it was, this ratio of worth between a few stones and the bright, minted sovereigns.

"What time shall I call to-morrow?" he asked, standing, cap in hand, ready to take his departure.

"At eleven. But wait one moment. Have you no friends to look after you?

See what trouble you may get into. Why, the mere possession of so much gold by a boy like you may----"

"I can take care of myself, Mr. Isaacstein. I will be here at eleven.

Good-afternoon."

CHAPTER VIII.

_The Transition._

It was four o'clock in the afternoon of a fine, but chilly March day when Philip regained Holborn with fifty pounds making a lump in his pocket, and Isaacstein's letter safely lodged in his coat. The mere weight of the gold suggested an unpleasant possibility. His clothes were so worn that the frail calico might give way and every golden coin rattle forth to the pavement.

So with one of Mr. Abingdon's s.h.i.+llings he made his first purchase, a capacious tobacco pouch with a snap mouth, for which he paid ninepence.

Then he adjourned to an aerated bread shop and ordered some refreshments. While the waitress was bringing his cup of tea and piece of cake he contrived to slip all the sovereigns but one into the tobacco pouch.

He did this with his hand in the pocket itself, and more than once there was a pleasant clink as the coins fell into their novel receptacle.

A man sitting near caught the sound, and looked up suspiciously. Philip, whose senses were very much on the alert to-day, realized that his action was somewhat careless. Without even glancing at his neighbor, he took out his remaining couple of s.h.i.+llings and the three pennies, and affected to count them with a certain degree of astonishment, as if some were missing. The ruse was satisfactory. The man gave him no further heed, and soon quitted the restaurant.

Philip tendered the odd sovereign in payment of his bill. The girl cas.h.i.+er seemed to be surprised that such a ragged youth should own so large a sum.

"All silver, please," said Philip, when she began to count his change.

He would take no more risks if he could avoid them. Not a single policeman in London would have failed to arrest him at that moment were his store of gold revealed by any chance. Yet Philip was rich honestly, and there were men driving away from the city at that hour whose banking accounts were plethoric with stolen money. For their carriages the policemen would stop the traffic. In neither instance could the guardians of the peace be held blameworthy; such is the importance of mere appearances.

The boy, during his short and terribly sharp tussle with London life, had already grasped this essential fact, and with great skill and method he set about the task of altering his own shabby exterior.

In a side street leading out of Gray's Inn Road, he found a secondhand clothes shop. Here he purchased a worn, but decent, blue serge suit for eight s.h.i.+llings six pence, a pair of boots for five s.h.i.+llings, a cap for ninepence, a woolen s.h.i.+rt for two s.h.i.+llings, and a linen collar for threepence.

He haggled sufficiently over the bargain to suit the needs of a scanty purse.

"I've cut 'em dahn low enough," said the shopkeeper, mournfully. "Things isn't wot they was in the ole clo' line, let me tell yer. Not but what you do want a new rig-aht."

"Yes," said Philip. "I've got a job, and can't keep it unless I look decent."

For the life of him he could not burlesque the c.o.c.kney accent, and although he used the simplest phraseology, the man glanced at him sharply.

"Where are yer workin'?" he said.

"At Isaacstein's in Hatton Garden." The words had not left his lips ere he regretted them.

"Wot is 'e?"

"A Jew," and Philip laughed. This quip atoned for the error of the admission.

"Bli-me, you won't get a lot aht of 'im."

"No. It cost me some trouble to get an advance, I can a.s.sure you."

Philip rattled all his silver and coppers onto the counter. He counted out sixteen s.h.i.+llings sixpence.

"Not much left, is there?" he said.

"Well, look 'ere," said the man. "Gimme fifteen bob. You're a sharp lad.

You'll myke yer w'y all right. Nex' time you want some duds come to me an' I'll treat you fair."

"Thank you very much," said Philip, considerably surprised by this generous act. "I certainly will not forget you."

"You can change in my little back room if you like. That lot you've got on ain't worth tykin' 'ome."

"I am obliged for your kindness, but I must be off now. It is late, and I have a long way to go."

"Where to? Holloway?"

"No, cityward."