He was so rich that the loss he might suffer did not trouble him enough to spoil his good-humor, and so honest that it was a pleasure to him to restore the stolen property to its rightful owner.

Early that morning, so he told them, Hiram the groom had been to him to offer him a wonderfully large and splendid emerald for sale.

The freedman had assured him that the stone was part of the property left by the famous Thomas, his former master.
It had decorated the head-stall of the horse which the hero of Damascus had last ridden, and it had come to him with the steed.
"I offered him what I thought fair," the Jew went on, "and paid him two thousand drachmae on account; the remainder he begged me to take charge of for the present.

To this I agreed, but ere long a fly began to hum suspicion in my ear.

Then the police rushed through the town with the bloodhounds.