“C. Q.”; or, In the Wireless House
of loose diamonds or pearls? I had a friend that did an awfully clever thing once—was n’t it, Lawrence? She had a pair of pearl earrings,—oh great big ones,—and her husband had some shirt studs, worth over fifteen thousand dollars all together. She could n’t think what to do at first, and then she had a brilliant idea—she’s awfully cleaver. They took his revolver and emptied out the shells and put the pearls in the cartridges instead of powder and placed the bullets on top of them just as they were in the begining. Was n’t that neat?”
“Diabohcal!” assented Lily.
“I knew a chap that invented something better than that,” put in Ashurst. “You know there are n’t any inspectors around after everybody has left the ship. Well, this fellow was bringing in a pearl necklace for his wife—cost nearly $20,000. He did n’t declare anything
and walked right through the inspectors. A couple of days later he went down to the office of the Company and got a card to go over and look at the ship, which was lying at the dock with only a few of the crew on board. The chap at the gangway let him up and he found12185
