“Certainly,” replied my reason, “but recollect the old adage—Quick returns, short profits—the penny whistles appeal to an immense area of customers, the sixty thousand pound parure to a very small number. How small that number must be we shall consider presently—the chances would, therefore, be in favour of a very slow sale of the diamonds, and consequently the profit must be proportionably large.
“But when we add to the slowness of the sale, the fearful risk of holding property so costly, so easily conveyed away, the very identity of the stones destroyed with the destruction of the setting—what profit can we suppose would remunerate any one for dealing in so dangerous an article? If a tradesman may reasonably look for a profit of 15l. per cent. per annum upon his capital invested in ordinary goods, could we in any fairness assert that he was very exorbitant in demanding 30l. per cent. upon the risk and slow sale of diamonds? Now thirty per cent. on 60,000l. is 18,000l.—so the purchaser is placed in this extraordinary position, he pays 60,000l. for a commodity, which, the moment it passes into his possession, stands at a market value of nearly one-third less than the purchase money—that is, for the 60,000l. he has paid, he could only command in return 42,000l.—the large sum of 18,000l. being his immediate loss on the transaction.
“But if the case of the buyer appears a bad one, the case of the tradesman, if he fails to obtain a purchaser, is still worse. We allowed that 30l. per cent. profit was necessary to render the transaction profitable to the seller; a year has passed away and the diamonds remain unsold. Diamond alone can cut diamond, it is said, but there is a worm with sharp adamantine teeth grawing at the stones; behold, it has devoured the 15l. per cent. legitimate trade profit on the year, and there only remains 15l. per cent., out of the original 30l. per cent., to remunerate the jeweller if he succeeds in selling during the second year. Alas! in this second year a more terrible worm, with still sharper adamantine teeth, is hatched—compound interest—and at the end of the second year, the whole original profit of 30l. per cent. is eaten up. Those two worms have positively more than devoured 18,000l., the legitimate trade profit for two years on 60,000l. The position is fearful! What shall the unfortunate tradesman do to redeem his loss during the third year? Shall he add the loss to the original selling price, and charge 78,000l. instead of 60,000l., or, in other words, sixty per cent. more than the market value of the stones. Desperate, but vain hope! if the purchaser were not forthcoming at 60,000l., how shall he be found at 78,000l.? But day and night those two terrible worms are at work; they have clean picked off every atom of profit, and with eager voracity they are gnawing at the very value of the stones. It now becomes an anxious effort with the unfortunate tradesman to preserve the sum he had originally paid for the stones, and it requires no great effort of the imagination to realise the terrible time when the market value of the diamonds becomes less than the accumulated interest lost upon their cost price.
“The longer we dwell,” observed my reason, “on the question of money value, the more wonderful does the matter become; but we must now consider the still more wonderful question as to the class of persons who buy these diamonds.
“We will quote the case of a very rich man; we will suppose that he possesses a fine house in Belgravia, and a magnificent historical mansion, surrounded by a fine park, in the country,—that he possesses chariots and horses and companies of footmen, and stalwart tenants, and great parliamentary influence, and first-rate shooting, with a large staff of keepers, &c.—in a word, that he is the greatest man in all that country side. But even this man could not afford to buy those diamonds, for he enjoys all this magnificence on 30,000l. per annum, and nothing short of foregoing his income for two years (the landed property is entailed, so he cannot sell a slice of that) would enable him to purchase the diamonds. Now, if the owner of 30,000l. per annum is debarred from becoming a buyer, just consider how excessively restricted the number of purchasers must be. We have heard, indeed, of some extraordinary passions for the acquisition of land—that men have borrowed money at five per cent. to buy land which could only pay from two to two-and-a-half per cent.—but it is impossible to suppose that anybody would borrow money at five per cent. to purchase a commodity which could not return the slightest interest, and which would confer on the purchaser neither parliamentary nor county influence.
“It is of course to be admitted,” continued my reason, “that in this rich country there are certain persons whose wealth is so enormous that they might well afford to fling away 18,000l., as ordinary persons throw away an odd hundred or so in mere tradesman’s profit on some nicknack. For instance, there are some few individuals who are reputed to live magnificently on the interest of the interest of their property, and manifestly, to persons of this class the loss of 18,000l. in the gratification of a whim would count as nothing. But though we may concede the ability of purchasing to this very limited class—we have no right to assume that the desire is concurrent with the ability. The Latin grammar teaches us the great moral principle, “Crescit amor nummi,” &c., and persons who exhibit such an extraordinary abstinence with regard even to the simple interest of their fortune, may be held, primâ facie, to possess a sound knowledge of Quid pro quo in all commercial transactions. But we must add to all this, the enormous temptation not to spend 60,000l. in diamonds—a sum which, devoted to a noble purpose, the patronage of art, for instance, could command the genius of the greatest men of the day, and, through their handiwork, would create a reputation for magnificence of taste which a king might envy. Think what a splendid gallery of modern art 60,000l. could furnish!—remember that with the 18,000l. utterly and immediately lost on the purchase of the diamonds, you might command three works of the class of Holman Hunt’s great picture. Or it may be that 60,000l. spent in some wise scheme of charity, shall assure you the gratitude of posterity. And against all this,” urged my reason, “what do we find—the glitter and pure water of the diamond?”
