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CHAPTER V
THE ART OF THE CUTTER
Without man's skill and his highly developed scientific processes the selling agents of London and elsewhere and their ally, Nature, would not be able to impress man with the beauty and desirability of the diamond. It would be a dull, almost ugly thing, looking something like a small piece of salt or, at best, a chunk of quartz. If you saw one of these rough stones lying about in a yard you might not be inclined to bother with it.
If
you think that statement an exaggeration, consider the time recently,
when a 50-carat stone, which just had been placed against a wheel in a
New York diamond cutting plant, suddenly shot out of the window and
fell thirteen floors to the ground below. Down there was an outdoor
restaurant in the rear of a building. The restaurant was fairly
crowded. And the people in the cutting room were frantic, for the
diamond was valued at about $25,000.
It
is fortunate the diamond hadn't been polished or almost certainly its
refractive qualities would have caught the rays of the sun and beamed
invitingly at one of the diners. But if anyone saw it no attention was
paid to it. A diamond worker hurried down to the restaurant and as
unobtrusively as possible looked around the gravel floor. He spied the
stone, indifferently picked it up and put it in his pocket, and went
back upstairs.
(76)
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