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 Galignan's Messenger that King had a weakness for collecting historical jewelry. They said he would buy any diamond with a history; and no sooner had I seen the paragraph than I got the notion.

"By the Lord Harry," said I to myself, "you've only got to make up a sham story to palm off on this joker any rubbishy stone at twice its price. Your yarn must be well done, of course, and must have the look of truth about it. But given a steady head and plenty of cheek, there's thousands in the deal."

Well, this was my first inkling of it, but as the day went on, I found the notion working me up into a perfect fever. The more I thought of it, the more money there seemed in it. I convinced myself that you'd only got to plan the thing on a large enough scale to make a fortune. King was a millionnaire; he was in Paris; it was ten to one he would swallow a tempting bait. "If," said I, "we can buy a stone for one thousand and sell it to him for two, there's a thousand pounds. Or, again, if we can buy a stone for ten thousand and sell it to him for twenty because of the sham history we're going to make up about it—where are. we then? Why, ten thousand to the good, and nobody but a swindling old bacon merchant a penny the worse." The idea was colossal, as Sir Nicolas said. It remained only for cool heads and steady nerves to go through with it.

Three days after this notion came to me, there appeared in the Paris Figaro a little bit of news which