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.processtext.com/abcpalm.htmland the shadow of awful gloom which sud-denly passed across his countenancewas quite startling.Mr.Fallon's artistry had never been disputed even by hisrivals in the profession."Lucky?" he practically yelped, in a rising crescendo of mournful indignation."Why, I'm the unluckiest man that ever lived!""Too bad," said the Saint, with profound sympathy."Lucky!" repeated Mr Fallon, with all the pained disgust of a hypochondriacwho has been accused of looking well."Why, I'm the sort of fellow if I saw afive-pound note lying in the street and tried to pick it up, I'd fall down andbreak my neck!"It was becoming clear to Simon Templar that Mr.Fallon felt that he wasunlucky."There are people like that," he said, reminiscently."I remembered an aunt ofmine ""Lucky?" reiterated Mr.Fallon, who did not appear to be interested in anyoneelse's aunt."Why, right at this moment I'm the unluckiest man in London.Lookhere" he clasped the Saint by the arm with the pathetically appealing movementof a drowning man clutching at a straw "do you think you could help me? If youhaven't got anything particular to do?I feel sort of well you look the sort of fellow who might have some ideas.Have you got time for a drink?"Simon Templar could never have been called a toper, but on such occasions asthis he invariably had time for a drink."I don't mind if I do," he saidobligingly.As a matter of fact, they were standing outside a mirac-ulously convenienthostel at that moment Louie Fallon had always believed in bringing themellowing influence of alcohol to bear as soon as he had scraped hisacquaintance, and he staged his encounters with that idea in view.With practised dexterity he steered the Saint towards the door of the saloonbar, cutting short the protest which Simon Templar had no intention whatsoeverof making.In hardly any more time than it takes to record, he had got theSaint inside the bar, parked him at a table, invited him to name his poison,procured a double ration of the said poison from the barmaid, and settledhimself in the adjoining chair to improve the shining hour.To the discerningcritic it might seem that he rushed at the process rather like an unleashedinvestor plunging after an absconding company promoter; but Louie Fallen'sconception of improving shining hours had never in-cluded any unnecessarywaste of time, and he had learnt by experience that the willingness of thespecies Mug to listen is usually limited only by the ability of theflatcatcher to talk."Yes," said Mr.Fallon, reverting to his subject."I am the unluckiest man youare ever likely to meet.Did you see that diamond I dropped just now?""Well," admitted the Saint truthfully, "I couldn't help seeing it."Mr.Fallon nodded.He fumbled in his waistcoat pocket, brought out the jewelagain, and laid it on the table."I made that myself," he said.Simon eyed the stone and Mr.Fallon with the puzzled ex-pression which wasexpected of him."What do you mean you made it?""I made it myself," said Mr.Fallon."It's what you would call synthetic.Ittook about half an hour, and it cost me ex-actly threepence.But there isn't adiamond merchant in Lon-don who could prove that it wasn't dug up out of theground in South Africa.Take it to anyone you like, and see if he does swearthat it's a perfectly genuine stone.""You mean it's a fake?" said the Saint."Fake my eye!" said Mr.Fallon, with emphatic if inelegant expressiveness."It's a perfectly genuine diamond, the same as any other stone you'll everseen.The only difference is that I made it.You know how diamonds are made?"The Saint had as good an idea of how diamonds are made as Louie Fallon wasever likely to have; but it seemed as if Louie liked talking, and in suchPage 98 ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.htmlcircumstances as that Simon Templar was the last man on earth to interferewith anyone's enjoyment.He shook his head blankly."I thought they sort of grew," he said vaguely."I don't know that I should put it exactly like that," said Louie."I'll tellyou how diamonds happen.Diamonds are just carbon like coal, or soot,or or """Paper?" suggested the Saint helpfully.Louie frowned."They're carbon," he said, "which is crystallised under pressure.When theearth was all sort of hot, like you read about in your history books before itsort of cooled down and people started to live in it and things grew onit there was a lot of carbon.Being hot, it burnt things, and when you burnthings you usually get carbon.Well, after a time, when the earth started tocool down, it sort of shrunk, like like ""A shirt when it goes to the wash?" said the Saint."Anyway, it shrunk," said Louie, yielding the point and passing on."And whathappened then?""It got smaller," hazarded the Saint."It caused terrific pressure," said Mr.Fallen firmly."Just imagine it.Thousands of millions of tons of rock and ""And rock.""And rock, cooling down, and shrinking up, and getting hard.Well, naturally,any bits of carbon that were floating around in the rock got squeezed.So whathappened?" de-manded Louie, triumphantly reaching the climax of his luciddescription
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