"Lord Dunsany - The Bird Of The Difficult Eye (2)" - читать интересную книгу автора (Dunsany Lord)

The Bird of the Difficult Eye

by Lord Dunsany



Observant men and women that know theirBond Streetwell
will appreciate my astonishment when in a jewellers' shop I
perceived that nobody was furtively watching me. Not only
this but when I even picked up a little carved crystal to
examine it no shop-assistants crowded round me. I walked
the whole length of the shop, still no one politely
followed.
Seeing from this that some extraordinary revolution had
occurred in the jewelry business I went with my curiosity
well aroused to a queer old person half demon and half man
who has an idol-shop in a byway of the City and who keeps me
informed of affairs at the Edge of the World. And briefly
over a pinch of heather incense that he takes by way of
snuff he gave me this tremendous information: that Mr. Neepy
Thang the son of Thangobrind had returned from the Edge of
the World and was even now inLondon.
The information may not appear tremendous to those
unacquainted with the source of jewelry; but when I say that
the only thief employed by any West-end jeweller since
famous Thangobrind's distressing doom is this same Neepy
Thang, and that for lightness of fingers and swiftness of
stockinged foot they have none better inParis, it will be
understood why the Bond-street jewellers no longer cared
what became of their old stock.
There were big diamonds inLondonthat summer and a few
considerable sapphires. In certain astounding kingdoms
behind the East strange sovereigns missed from their turbans
the heirlooms of ancient wars, and here and there the
keepers of crown jewels who had not heard the stockinged
feet of Thang, were questioned and died slowly.
And the jewellers gave a little dinner to Thang at the
Hotel Great Magnificent; the windows had not been opened for
five years and there was wine at a guinea a bottle that you
could not tell from champagne and cigars at half a crown
with aHavanalabel. Altogether it was a splendid evening
for Thang.
But I have to tell of a far sadder thing than a dinner at
a hotel. The public require jewelry and jewelry must be
obtained. I have to tell of Neepy Thang's last journey.
That year the fashion was emeralds. A man named Green
had recently crossed the Channel on a bicycle and the
jewellers said that a green stone would be particularly
appropriate to commemorate the event and recommended
emeralds.