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220
KNAVES OF DIAMONDS.

others of his kind, he was one day tempted by the sight of a large parcel of very fine illicit diamonds, and, as the price asked was ridiculously small in comparison with their intrinsic value, he fell. He had kept the stones for several months in close hiding, not even divulging the fact of their existence to his own wife, until at length he felt safe in coming to the conclusion that, with proper precautions, he could get them out of the country without risk.

All this time he had failed to detect the slightest sign of any suspicion on the part of the authorities with regard to himself, although that fact of itself was no real proof that the vigilant eye of Inspector Lipinzki, chief of the Detective Department, was one whit the less wide awake than usual, and, about six months after Mrs. Michael Mosenstein, a well-known leader of Semitic society in Kimberley, had gone down to