ringed by satellites, each of whom believes himself an
expert. Then there is a swaying in the crowd, and a
miner edges in, picturesque in wide trousers and great
flapping hat, and subsides by the tray on his haunches.
There is a little cloth bag in his hands, tied very tightly
round the neck with string. Slowly he unwinds the
string, and the
masked eyes of the
buyer glitter. No
word is spoken.
The seller is in no
hurry. When at
last the longO; stringO:
has been unwound,
and th e h a n d
clasping the little
globe of cloth
relaxes its amatory
grip, the mouth of
the bag is turned
down, and from
its interior there
flows into the tray
the red stream of
stones.
Then the buyer
moves. His long,
delicate, nervous,
fingers reach out
w a t e r swiftly, and in an
Instant the little
pyramid is spread
over the shining
disc, each stone
blinking in the
l ight. F o r the
next few seconds,
all is an eloquent
pantomime of fingers.
The good
and the bad stones
are u n e r r i n g l y
sep a rated from
each other, and
formed' into two
little piles; the bad
being pushed back
to the seller’s end of
the tray, the good
brought instinctively
a little closer
to the buyer. At
this stage discus- UAUMN'r;
sion supervenes.
All the critics have their say ; the seller waxes eloquent,
the buyer cold and deprecatory. Thus the duel
proceeds.
There is a score of these trays, like suns, in the
close cluster of men. And that is nearly all there is
to tell. Like all that is truly Eastern, the process is