CHAPTER IV.
THE UNLIMITED SUPPLY "If you will all be seated again, please ?" requested Mr.Wynne, who still stood, cool and self-certain, at the end of the table.
The sound of his voice brought a returning calm to the others, and they resumed their seats--all save Mr.Cawthorne, who walked over to a window with the three spheres in his hand and stood there examining them under his glass.
"You gentlemen know, of course, the natural shape of the diamond in the rough ?" Mr.Wynne resumed questioningly.

"Here are a dozen specimens which may interest you--the octahedron, the rhombic dodecahedron, the triakisoctahedron and the hexakisoctahedron." He spread them along the table with a sweeping gesture of his hand, colorless, inert pebbles, ranging in size from a pea to a peanut.
"And now, you ask, where do they come from ?" The others nodded unanimously.
"I'll have to state a fact that you all know, as part answer to that question," replied Mr.Wynne.

"A perfect diamond is a perfect diamond, no matter where it comes from--Africa, Brazil, India or New Jersey.

There is not the slightest variation in value if the stone is perfect.

That being true, it is a matter of no concern to you, as dealers, where these come from--sufficient it is that they are here, and, being here, they bring home to you the necessity of concerted action to uphold the diamond as a thing of value." "You said der vorld's oudpud had been increased fiftyfold ?" suggested Mr.Schultze.