The Orange-Yellow Diamond | Page 5

at all," exclaimed Lauriston.
"Quite easy, I assure you!"
He ran out of the house again and back to where he knew there was

food. He was only one-and-twenty, a well-built lad, with a healthy
appetite, which, until very recently, had always been satisfied, and just
then he was feeling that unless he ate and drank, something--he knew
not what--would happen. He was even conscious that his voice was
weakening, when, having entered the eating-house and dropped into a
seat in one of the little boxes into which the place was divided, he
asked the waitress for the food and drink which he was now positively
aching for. And he had eaten a plateful of fish and two boiled eggs and
several thick slices of bread and butter, and drunk the entire contents of
a pot of tea before he even lifted his eyes to look round him. But by
that time he was conscious of satisfaction, and he sat up and inspected
the place to which he had hurried so eagerly. And in the same moment
he once more saw Melky.
Melky had evidently just entered the little eating-house. Evidently, too,
he was in no hurry for food or drink. He had paused, just within the
entrance, at a desk which stood there, whereat sat Mrs. Goldmark, the
proprietress, a plump, pretty young woman, whose dark, flashing eyes
turned alternately from watching her waitresses to smiling on her
customers as they came to the desk to pay their bills. Melky, his smart
billy-cock hat cocked to one side, his sporting-looking overcoat
adorned with a flower, was evidently paying compliments to Mrs.
Goldmark as he leaned over her desk: she gave him a playful push and
called to a waitress to order Mr. Rubinstein a nice steak. And Melky,
turning from her with a well satisfied smile, caught sight of Lauriston,
and sauntered down to the table at which he sat.
"Get your bit of business done all right?" he asked, confidentially, as he
took a seat opposite his fellow-lodger and bent towards him. "Find the
old gent accommodating?"
"I didn't see him," answered Lauriston. "I saw a young lady."
"My cousin Zillah," said Melky. "Smart girl, that, mister--worth a pile
o' money to the old man--she knows as much about the business as
what he does! You wouldn't think, mister," he went on in his soft,
lisping tones, "but that girl's had a college education--fact! Old Daniel,
he took her to live with him when her father and mother died, she being

a little 'un then, and he give her--ah, such an education as I wish I'd
had--see? She's quite the lady--is Zillah--but sticks to the old shop--not
half, neither!"
"She seems very business-like," remarked Lauriston, secretly pleased
that he had now learned the pretty pawnbroker's name. "She soon did
what I wanted." "In the blood," said Melky, laconically. "We're all of
us in that sort o' business, one way or another. Now, between you and
me, mister, what did she lend you on that bit o' stuff?"
"Three pounds fifteen," replied Lauriston.
"That's about it," assented Melky, with a nod. He leaned a little nearer.
"You don't want to sell the ticket?" he suggested. "Give you a couple o'
quid for it, if you do."
"You seem very anxious to buy that watch," said Lauriston, laughing.
"No-- I don't want to sell the ticket--not I! I wouldn't part with that
watch for worlds."
"Well, if you don't, you don't," remarked Melky. "And as to wanting to
buy--that's my trade. I ain't no reg'lar business--I buy and sell, anything
that comes handy, in the gold and silver line. And as you ain't going to
part with that ticker on no consideration, I'll tell you what it's worth, old
as it is. Fifteen quid!"
"That's worth knowing, any way," said Lauriston. "I shall always have
something by me then, while I have that. You'd have made a profit of a
nice bit, then, if I'd sold it to you?"
"It 'ud be a poor world, mister, if you didn't get no profit, wouldn't it?"
assented Melky calmly. "We're all of us out to make profit. Look
here!--between you and me--you're a lit'ry gent, ain't you? Write a bit,
what? Do you want to earn a fiver--comfortable?"
"I should be very glad," replied Lauriston.
"There's a friend o' mine," continued Melky, "wholesale jeweller, down

Shoreditch way, wants to get out a catalogue. He ain't no lit'ry powers,
d'you see? Now, he'd run to a fiver--cash down--if some writing feller
'ud touch things up a bit for him, like. Lor' bless you!--it wouldn't take
you more'n a day's work! What d'ye say to it?"
"I wouldn't mind earning five pounds at that," answered Lauriston.
"Right-oh!" said Melky. "Then some day next week, I'll take you