'No, no, madam', says the Dutchman very kindly; 'you must not go; all our discourse is about you and your jewels, and you shall hear it presently; it concerns you very much, I assure you.' 'Concerns me!' says I. 'What can it concern me so much as to put this gentleman into such agonies, and what makes him give me such devil's looks as he does? Why, he looks as if he would devour me.'
The Jew understood me presently, continuing in a kind of rage, and spoke in French: 'Yes, madam, it does concern you much, very much, very much', repeating the words, shaking his head; and then turning to the Dutchman, 'Sir', says he, 'pray tell her what is the case.' 'No', says the merchant, 'not yet; let us talk a little farther of it by ourselves'; upon which they withdrew into another room, where still they talked very high, but in a language I did not understand. I began to be a little surprised at what the Jew had said, you may be sure, and eager to know what he meant, and was very impatient till the Dutch merchant came back, and that so impatient that I called one of his servants to let him know I desired to speak with him. When he came in I asked his pardon for being so impatient, but told him I could not be easy till he had told me what the meaning of all this was. 'Why, madam', says the Dutch merchant, 'in short, the meaning is what I am surprised at too. This man is a Jew, and understands jewels perfectly well, and that was the reason I sent for him, to dispose of them to him for you; but as soon as he saw them, he knew the jewels very distinctly, and flying out in a passion, as you see he did, told me, in short, that they were the very parcel of jewels which the English jeweller had about him who was robbed, going to Versailles, about eight years ago, to show them the Prince de , and that it was for these very jewels that the poor gentleman was murdered; and he is in all this agony to make me ask you how you came by them; and, he says, you ought to be charged with the robbery and murder, and put to the question to discover who were the persons that did it, that they might be brought to justice.' While he said this, the Jew came impudently back into the room without calling, which a little surprised me again.
The Dutch merchant spoke pretty good English, and he knew that the Jew did not understand English at all, so he told me the latter part, when he came into the room, in English, at which I smiled, which put the Jew into his mad fit again, and shaking his head and making his devil's faces again, he seemed to threaten me for laughing, saying, in French, this was an affair I should have little reason to laugh at, and the like. At this I laughed again, and flouted him, letting him see that I scorned him, and turning to the Dutch merchant, 'Sir', says I, 'that those jewels were be longing to Mr. , the English jeweller' (naming his name readily), in that', says I, 'this person is right; but that I should be questioned how I came to have them is a token of his ignorance, which, however, he might have managed with a little more good manners, till I told him who I am, and both he and you too will be more easy in that part, when I should tell you that I am the unhappy widow of that Mr who was so barbarously murdered going to Versailles, and that he was not robbed of those jewels, but of others, Mr having left those behind him with me, lest he should be robbed. Had I, sir, come otherwise by them, I should not have been weak enough to have exposed them to sale here, where the thing was done, but have carried them farther off.'
