I stared blankly at Billings. "Rubies!" I gasped.

He nodded. "Genuine pigeon bloods, my son, no less."

"Oh, come now, Billings," I protested. I felt a little miffed, just a little you know. So jolly raw to try it on that way.

"By jove, old chap, you must think me a common ass," I suggested disgustedly.

Billings grinned at the very idea.

"You a common ass, Dicky?" he ejaculated. "Nobody who knows you would ever think that, old man."

"But, I say—"

"See here, Dicky boy, I'm in dead earnest," he interrupted eagerly. "Don't you remember my one fad—gems? Got enough tied up in them to build two apartment houses as big as this. Best amateur collection in New York, if I do say it. But I haven't anything like one of these rubies, and neither has any one else—no one else in this country, anyhow. There's nothing like them in all New York, from Tiffany's down to Maiden Lane, and never has been. I never saw anything like—near like any of them—except the one in the Russian crown of Anna Ivanovana. That's bigger, but it hasn't the same fire."

I just laughed at him. "Why, Billings, these pajamas were sent me by a friend in China, and I assure you—"

"Assure? What can you assure—what do you know about it?" said Billings rudely. "What did your friend know, or the one he had these things from—or the one before him—or the one still before that? Pshaw!" And he snapped his fingers.

With his hand he swept up the little caps and the long, wirelike threads that held them and sniffed the handful curiously.

"H'm! Funky sort of aromatic smell—balsam, cedar oil or something like that," he muttered half aloud. "That accounts for the preservation. But still—"

He crossed his legs and puffed thoughtfully.

"Tell you how I figure this out, Dicky," he said finally. "These nighties your friend has sent you are awfully rare and old; and for delicate, dainty elegance and that sort of thing they've got everything else in the silk way shoved off the clothes-line. But as to these jewels, you can just bet all you've got that whoever passed them on was not wise to them being under these covers."

Here he got to looking at one of the buttons and murmuring his admiration—regular trance, you know.

"By Jove!" I remarked, just to stir him up a bit. And he unloaded a great funnel of smoke and continued:

"My theory is that during some danger, some mandarins' war, likely, somebody got cold feet about these jewels and roped them in with these bits of silk—see how different they are from the rest of the stuff! Then, when the roughhouse came, these pajamas were swept along in the sacking—sort of spoils of pillage, you know. It was a clever method of concealment—clever because simple—a hiding place unlikely to be thought of because right under the eye. You recall Poe's story of The Purloined Letter?"

I tried to remember. "Can't say I do, dear boy," I had to admit. "Don't seem to place that one. Only one I remember hearing him tell is that one he brought back from Paris. Let me see—The Story of the Lonely Lobster, I think he called it." I chortled delightedly as it came back to me. "By Jove, that was devilish neat! Don't know when I've ever heard—"

An offensive remark by Billings interrupted me.

"Here, Dicky, Dicky, what do you think you're talking about?" he added rudely. Evidently his mind had wandered from the subject. So I replied with dignity—dignity, with just a touch of sarcasm:

"Pogue—'Mickey' Pogue of our club. Perhaps you don't know Mickey Pogue?" And, by Jove, that fetched him! He stared at me a moment, and then, getting up, he reached over and solemnly shook me by the hand.

"Dicky," he said, wagging his head, "I apologize. You take the brioche!" And he turned his back a second.

I asked Billings how much he thought one of the rubies was worth. I had in mind how devilish hungrily he had looked at them. But he sighed, then frowned and answered impatiently:

"That's it! That's the trouble about all the rare and beautiful things of this life! Always some debasing, prohibitive sordid money value, dammit!"

He squinted at the stones again and let the weight of one rest upon his finger. He shook his head, sighing.

"Well, they're over twenty carats each, and therefore, of course, many times the value of first water diamonds. After you get above five carats with real Oriental rubies, diamonds are not in it."

With an abrupt gesture he pushed the things away and rose. His pipe had gone out, but I noticed that he did not relight it. I held the gems full in the rays of the lamp, and Billings paused, holding a hungry gaze over his shoulder.

"I say, Billings, how much did you say one was worth?" I asked carelessly. For a moment he did not reply, but muttered to himself.

"I didn't say," he finally replied, and rather crossly. Then he whirled on me impulsively. "See here, Lightnut," he exclaimed, "if you'll let me have one of those for my collection, I'll give you twenty-five thousand for it—there!"

He gulped and continued:

"I'll have to make some sacrifices, but I don't mind that. I—"

But I shook my head. Really, I could hardly keep from laughing in his face.

"Sorry! Can't see it, old chap," I said. "Wouldn't sell one of them at any price."

Billings gulped again. "I suppose not; don't blame you. Way you're fixed, you don't have to." He walked slowly to the window and back. "Take my advice, Dicky, and get those fire coals into your safe deposit vault first thing in the morning. Hello, you're cutting them off! That's wise."

For with the knife he had left on the table I was cutting away the tough threads that held the rubies. I cut off the second and fourth, leaving the first ruby at the collar and the other two alternates.

"Go on," said Billings, as I laid down the knife. "You've only removed two."

"Don't believe I'll cut off any more," I said. "Want you to help me tie up the others just as they were."

"What!"

I insisted. And though Billings protested and argued and even called me names, we did as I said.

For, by Jove, you know it was perfectly clear that if they had been safe so long under the little covers, the jewels couldn't find any better place. Singular thing Billings couldn't see it. Besides, the pajamas had to have fastenings, you know.

I held one of the two rubies under the light, and, by Jove, I almost dropped it—did drop my glass. Seeing a red-hot poker-point in your fingers would give you the same turn.

"Rippers, Billings! Simply rippers!" I exclaimed.

I held the other ruby beside its fellow. Then I waited, listening, and I heard Billings' hand strike down on the back of a chair.

"I guess I'll be going, old chap," he said gruffly. "Think I'd better, after all." He cleared his throat. "Sure you can't sell me one, Dicky?" Dashed if his voice didn't tremble.

"Quite sure, dear boy," I murmured, without turning around. "Not mine, you know—these two."

Billings exploded then. It seemed an opportunity to relieve himself. "Not yours! Why, you dod-gasted idiot, you nincompoop, you cuckoo, you chicken head! What notion have you got in that fool's noddle now? If those rubies are not yours, whose do you think they are?"

I whirled about quickly. "Yours," I said, and laid them in his hand.

"My compliments, old chap," I added, smiling. By Jove! One time, at least, I put it all over old Billings!

"No!" he gasped, crouching over and gripping my shoulder.

I grinned cheerfully.

He fell into a chair and just sat there mouthing at me and then at the jewels in his hand. Old boy looked devilish silly. Really acted like he had some sort of stroke—that sort of thing.

I laughed at him.

"Don't you see?" I said, trying to explain. "Wouldn't have known a dashed thing about the buttons being rubies but for you. So lucky they came to me so I can get a chance to help out your collection. Awfully glad, old chap."

He clenched the jewels, and looked down.

"Dicky—" He coughed a little huskily as he paused. "Dicky." His voice was so low I could hardly hear him. "Dicky, you're off your trolley, and I'm a damned—"

He raised his arm and dropped it.

"Well, never mind what," he finished with a lift of the shoulders. "But I want to say something. It's about what I offered you for those stones. The price—the amount I named—wasn't even a decent gamble; but it was all I could go, and oh, I wanted one so badly, Dicky! And now you've made me feel like a dog. And I can't take your gift, old chap, any more than I could afford to offer you the real value of one of these beautiful stones. Here." And he passed them back to me.

"I know each of them to be worth anywhere from forty to fifty thousand dollars," he said quietly. "They're the kind the crowned heads scoop for jewels of state."

I nodded, and, getting up carelessly, I strolled to a window.

"Devilish lovely night," I said, poking my head out. And it was. Stars overhead and all that sort of thing, and lots of them below, too—I could hear them singing over on Broadway.

"All right, old chap; then here they go into the street," I said. "If my friend can't have 'em, then no jolly crowned heads shall. That's flat!"

Billings started forward with a regular scream.

I waved him back. "Don't come any nearer, old chap," I said, holding my arm out of the window, "or, dash me, I'll drop them instantly. Six stories, you know—stone flagging below."

"But, Dicky—"

"If you don't say you'll take 'em, time I count three, I'll give 'em a toss, by Jove! One!"

"Here, Dicky! Don't be a—"

"Two!" I counted. No bluff, you know; I meant jolly well to do it.

"Just one word—one second, Dicky!" he yelled. "Let me off with one, then. Dicky! Dicky, old chap! Be a good sportsman!"

I hesitated. Dash it, one hates to take an advantage.

Billings stretched out his arm appealingly. "Do, old chap!" he pleaded. "Give me just one—one only!"

His hand shook like a quivering what's-its-name leaf.

I yielded reluctantly: "Oh, well then, call it off with one," I said. And with a sigh I tossed him one of the rubies and dropped the other in the pocket of my smoking-jacket. Billings wiped his forehead, and then he thanked me and wiped his eyes.

"So good of you to give in, old chap," he snuffled. "Never will forget you for it!"

"Oh, I say, chuck it, you know!" I protested.

"Whole family will thank you," he went on in his handkerchief. "Princely magnanimity and all that sort of thing—you'll just have to come up for the week end with me this—"

"I will!" I reached forward eagerly and insisted on shaking hands. By Jove, what luck!

And Billings looked regularly overcome. All he could do was just shake his head and pump my arm. Why, dash it, this seemed to affect him more even than giving in about the ruby. It was the first time I had ever accepted his invitation, you know.

"Tell you what, old chap," he said, as soon as he could speak. "I'm going to tell you what to do with that other stone. You save that for her."

"Her!" By Jove, I was so startled I lost the grip on my monocle. Billings nodded emphatically.

"Yes, sir—for her; she'll be along one of these days."

"By Jove, you know!" I was almost dizzy with a sudden idea. I fished out the jewel and held it before my glass, squinting doubtfully at it. I wondered if it was good enough for "her."

"I say, Billings," I murmured thoughtfully. "Blondes or brunettes, you know—which wear rubies?"

"Both!" He said it with a kind of jaw snap. "They wear anything in the jewel line they can freeze on to."

"But which—"

"The worst? Blondes, my boy—blondes, every time; especially those going around in black." Billings spoke gloomily. "Let me tell you, my boy—and I know—don't you ever have anything to do with a blonde if she's in black, especially black silk—hear?"

By Jove, his uplifted finger and fierce way of saying it gave me a regular turn, you know. But then there was the ruby, and I was thinking that—

"Perhaps the four of them in a bracelet," I muttered, "with something else to help out. They might do."

"They might," said Billings in a tone of coarse sarcasm. "They might do for a queen!"

I flashed a quick look at him. "Just what I was thinking," I answered gently.

"Meantime," said Billings, yawning, "let's go to bed."

And just as I rang for Jenkins I suddenly was seized with a perfectly ripping idea that checked a long yawn right in the middle and almost broke my jaw. For I saw how I could do something handsome that would even up with Billings in a way for the ruby he wouldn't take.

"Tell you what, old chap," I said, slapping him on the shoulder, "you are going to have them to-night!"

"Have—have what?" burst from him. "Rubies? I tell you I won't take another—"

"Rubies!" I ejaculated contemptuously. "Rubies nothing! Something better—something worth while, dash it!"

I saw he would never guess it.

"Why, you shall sleep in the pajamas from China," I exclaimed. And gathering them, I placed them in his hands.

"By George, Dicky!" Billings' face showed feeling. "How infernally clever of you, old chap! How thundering timely, too!"

He held them up singly, studying their outlines critically.

"And see here, Dicky—why, great Thomas cats!" His eyes turned on me wonderingly. "Never noticed it before—did you? But I do believe they are just my size!"

His size! By Jove, I had forgotten all about the item of size! I just collapsed into a chair as he said good night, and sat there blinking in a regular stupefaction of horror as his door closed behind him.

For he was devilish sensitive about his bulk, and I dared not say a word.