"Very well," said Mr. Boon, with a smile. "I'll take three and a half per cent, off for cash."
"But we agreed on seven!" remonstrated the Englishman.
"Well, three and a half per cent, of the whole is the same as six months at seven per cent."
"Oh!" The colonel began to figure in his mind. His cervical contortions, twitchings, and jerkings were painful to behold. Mr. Boon thought it was a mild form of St. Vitus's dance. It would enable him to recognize the colonel in a crowd of ten thousand.
"Quite so! Yes--three and a half per cent, of the total bill. It will be at least twenty thousand pounds--that's one hundred thousand dollars. Not half bad! What?"
"Do you mean your commission will be one hundred thousand dollars? I'm delighted to hear it!" Mr. Boon was so pleased that he jested. He would play up the royal patronage to the limit.
"Oh no! I meant the total amount, you know," corrected the colonel, earnestly. He saw that Boon was smiling, and gradually it dawned on him that the jeweler was an American humorist. "Oh! Ah! Yes! Very funny! Quite so! I wish it were! How many millions would the bill have to be for the cash discount to be twenty thousand pounds? What? Right-O! Well, now bring the pearls and the other things to the motor. I shall show them to his Royal Highness at once. I can let you know in a half-hour which he will keep." And he rose.
"Ah!--er--Colonel, you know we don't like to--ah!--there's over two hundred thousand dollars' worth of jewels, worth four hundred thousand dollars in any other place in New York; and if anything happened--"
"Nothing will happen," said the colonel, with assurance.
"And then, it will take a long time to prepare the memorandum of--"
"Why do you need a memorandum?" inquired the colonel, coldly. He looked as if he began to suspect that Mr. Boon distrusted a member of the suite of his Royal Highness, Prince Arthur William Patrick Albert, K.G., K.T., K.P., P.C., G.M.B., G.3. S.I., G.C.M.G., G.C.I.E., G.C.V.O., Duke of Connaught and Stratheam, Earl of Sussex, Prince of Coburg and Gotha, Governor-General of Canada, and potential customer of the world-renowned firm of Welch, Boon & Shaw.
Reading the emotions on the colonel's face and not desiring to offend, but at the same time determined not to deliver two hundred thousand dollars' worth of goods to a stranger, who might be the duke's secretary, but might not be a reliable man financially, for all that, Mr. Boon groped for an excuse. But Colonel Lowther pursued, frigidly: