 | Eli Perkins (at large) |  |
SOLITAIRE DIAMONDS.
Since they have discovered
diamonds in Africa, they are
getting too common on Fifth
Avenue to be even noticed.
One young lady, reported to
be young and handsome, wears
finger-ring diamonds in her hair.
A Chicago lady, staying at the
Fifth Avenue, alleged to have
lived with her present husband
two weeks without getting a
divorce, wears diamond dress-buttons;
and even one of the
colored waiters — an African, too,
right from the mines—showed me a
diamond in his carpet-bag weighing
thirty-seven pounds, which he offered
to sell to me in the rough for $4—
a clear indication that even the Africans
don't appreciate the treasures they have
found.
This morning a lady from Oil City
went into Tiffany's great jewelry store and said she
desired to purchase a diamond.
“I understand solitaire diamonds are the best,
Mr. Tiffany,” she said, “please show me some of
them.”
“Here is a nice solitaire,” answered the silver-haired
diamond prince. “How do you like it?”
“Putty well,” said the lady, revolving it in her fingers.
“It shines well, but are you sure it is a solitaire,
Mr. Tiffany?”
“Why, of course, madame.”
“Wall now, if you will warrant it to be a real genuine
solitaire, Mr. Tiffany, I don't mind buying it for
my daughter Julia—and—come to think,” she continued,
as she buttoned her six-button kid-gloves and
took her parasol to leave, “if you've got five or six
more real genuine solitaires just like this one, I don't
mind takin' 'em all so's to make a big solitaire cluster
for myself.”
“Yes, madame, we'll guarantee it to be a real solitaire,”
smilingly replied Mr. Tiffany, and then the head
of the house went up to his private office and in the
presence of four hundred clerks sat down and wrote
his official guarantee that the diamond named was a
genuine solitaire. As the lady bore the certificate from
the big jewelry palace she observed to herself, “There's
nothing like knowing you've got the genuine thing.
It's really so satisfyin' to feel sure!”
But that evening her fiendish husband refused to
buy the diamonds—“and then this beautiful woman,”
said Mr. Tiffany—“all dressed up in silks and laces
and garnet ear-rings cut on a bias, sat down in the
hotel parlor and had to refuse to go to a party at Mrs.
polonaise!”
“O dear!” said the great jeweller, and in the fullness
of his grief he poured a coal scuttle into a case
full of diamonds and watches and silver spoons, and
a basketful of diamonds and pearls and garnets into
the coal stove.
| Eli Perkins (at large) | |