I had fallen
into the clutches of an expert hypnotist who was amusing himself at my
expense, that the miniature rose was a mere hallucination produced by
the same means as the notorious Indian rope trick.

Then, looking around me at the cosmopolitan groups surrounding the many
tables, and catching snatches of conversations dealing with subjects
so diverse as the quality of whisky in Singapore, the frail beauty
of Chinese maidens, and the ways of "bloody greasers," common sense
reasserted itself.

I looked into the gray face of my acquaintance.

"I cannot believe," I said slowly, "that human ingenuity could
so closely duplicate the handiwork of nature. Surely the gem is
unique?--possibly one of those magical talismans of which we read in
Eastern stories?"

My companion smiled.

"It is not a gem," he replied, "and while in a sense it is a product of
human ingenuity, it is also the handiwork of nature."

I was badly puzzled, and doubtless revealed the fact, for the stranger
laughed in his short fashion, and:

"I am not trying to mystify you," he assured me. "But the truth is so
hard to believe sometimes that in the present case I hesitate to divulge
it. Did you ever meet Tcheriapin?"

This abrupt change of topic somewhat startled me, but nevertheless:

"I once heard him play," I replied. "Why do you ask the question?"

"For this reason: Tcheriapin possessed the only other example of this
art which so far as I am aware ever left the laboratory of the inventor.
He occasionally wore it in his buttonhole."

"It is then a manufactured product of some sort?"

"As I have said, in a sense it is; but"--he drew the tiny exquisite
ornament from his pocket again and held it up before me--"it is a
natural bloom."

"What!"

"It is a natural bloom," replied my acquaintance, fixing his penetrating
gaze upon me. "By a perfectly simple process invented by the cleverest
chemist of his age it had been reduced to this gem-like state while
retaining unimpaired every one of its natural beauties, every shade of
its natural colour. You are incredulous?"

"On the contrary," I replied, "having examined it through a magnifying
glass I had already assured myself that no human hand had fashioned
it. You arouse my curiosity intensely. Such a process, with its endless
possibilities, should be worth a fortune to the inventor."

The stranger nodded grimly and again concealed the rose in his pocket.

"You are right," he said; "and the