ocket, a black oval case which he radiantly explained to be his
Christmas present for his god-daughter. With an unaffected vain-glory
that had something disarming about it he held out the case before them
all; it flew open at a touch and half-blinded them. It was just as if a
crystal fountain had spurted in their eyes. In a nest of orange velvet
lay like three eggs, three white and vivid diamonds that seemed to set
the very air on fire all round them. Fischer stood beaming benevolently
and drinking deep of the astonishment and ecstasy of the girl, the grim
admiration and gruff thanks of the colonel, the wonder of the whole
group.

"I'll put 'em back now, my dear," said Fischer, returning the case to
the tails of his coat. "I had to be careful of 'em coming down. They're
the three great African diamonds called 'The Flying Stars,' because
they've been stolen so often. All the big criminals are on the track;
but even the rough men about in the streets and hotels could hardly have
kept their hands off them. I might have lost them on the road here. It
was quite possible."

"Quite natural, I should say," growled the man in the red tie. "I
shouldn't blame 'em if they had taken 'em. When they ask for bread, and
you don't even give them a stone, I think they might take the stone for
themselves."

"I won't have you talking like that," cried the girl, who was in a
curious glow. "You've only talked like that since you became a horrid
what's-his-name. You know what I mean. What do you call a man who wants
to embrace the chimney-sweep?"

"A saint," said Father Brown.

"I think," said Sir Leopold, with a supercilious smile, "that Ruby means
a Socialist."

"A radical does not mean a man who lives on radishes," remarked Crook,
with some impatience; "and a Conservative does not mean a man who
preserves jam. Neither, I assure you, does a Socialist mean a man who
desires a social evening with the chimney-sweep. A Socialist means a
man who wants all the chimneys swept and all the chimney-sweeps paid for
it."

"But who won't allow you," put in the priest in a low voice, "to own
your own soot."

Crook looked at him with an eye of interest and even respect. "Does one
want to own soot?" he asked.

"One might," answered Brown, with speculation in his eye. "I've heard
that gardeners use it. And I once made six children happy at Christmas
when the conjuror didn't come, entirely with soot--applied externally."

"Oh, splendid," cried R