er, the shuffling and
tramp of heavy boots, the clink of glasses, the beating of the rain
upon the windows seemed far away.

"I'd not be s'prised," says Tom Bull, in the low, hoarse voice of awe,
"if them there was di'monds!"

"They is," says my uncle, with satisfaction.

"Di'monds!" sighs Tom Bull. "My God!"

'Twas boredom--the intimate inspection, the question, the start of
surprise. 'Twas all inevitable, so familiar--so distastefully
intrusive, too. 'Twas a boredom hard to suffer, and never would have
been borne had not the occasion of it been my uncle's delight. 'Twas
always the same: Diamonds? ay, diamonds! and then the gasped "My God!"
They would pry into this, by the Lord! and never be stopped by my
scowl and the shrinking of my flesh. It may be that the parade my
misguided guardian made of me invited the intimacy, and, if so, I have
no cry to raise against the memory of it; but, whatever, they made
free with the child that was I, and boldly, though 'twas most boresome
and ungrateful to me. As a child my hand was fingered and eyed by
every 'longshore jack, coast-wise skipper, and foreign captain from
the Turkey Cock to the sign of The King George. And wherever I went
upon the streets of St. John's in those days there was no escape: the
glitter of me stopped folk in their tracks--to turn and stare and
wonder and pass muttering on.

"Three in that one, Tom," adds my uncle.

'Twas a moment before Tom Bull had mastered his amazement. "Well,
well!" cries he. "Di'monds! Three in that one! Lord, Lord, think o'
that! This wee feller with all them di'monds! An' Skipper Nicholas,"
says he, drawing closer to my beaming uncle, "this here red stone,"
says he, touching the ring on my third finger, "would be a jool? A
ruby, like as not?"

"'Tis that," says my uncle.

"An' this here?" Tom Bull continues, selecting my little finger.

"Well, now, Tom," says my uncle, with gusto, for he delighted in these
discussions, "I 'low I better tell you 'bout that. Ye see, lad," says
he, "that's a seal-ring, Tom. I'm told that gentlemen wears un t'
stamp the wax o' their corr-ee-spondence. 'Twas Sir Harry that give me
the trick o' that. It haves a D for Daniel, an' a C for Callaway; an'
it haves a T in the middle, Tom, for Top. I 'lowed I'd get the Top in
somewheres, so I put it in atween the D an' the C t' have it lie snug:
for I'm not wantin' this here little Dannie t' forget that Top was t'
the wheel in his younger days." He t