[Idriess, Ion L., 1937, Forty Fathoms Deep, Angus & Robertson, Sydney, Chapter 2]
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Chapter 2
Con the Bosun
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Mark Rubin was actually the man who put the Australian pearl definitely on the market; he made the market. In youthful days, essentially a battler, he pushed a barrow as a hawker. He made a crust in various ways. A small man and apparently not physically strong, he did not hesitate to lump coal at Newcastle. Uncultured, forcing bluster when necessary to cover his lack of knowledge, his assets were courage and a determined will.
Fortune guided Rubin to the White Cliffs opal-fields, in the north-western corner of New South Wales.. It was really destiny; he was to be a famous buyer of gems. He swung his pick as an opal-gouger, but was soon buying small parcels of stones in the rough; facing them; then selling them at a profit. In a month he learnt more about opals than the majority of men would learn in a year. In a very short time he rose to be a recognized buyer.
Later, Rubin noticed that one of the big buyers made trips of long duration from the field. Rubin, with the genius of a Sherlock Holmes, tabulated this man's time. He traced him to Sydney and Melbourne, to Paris, Vienna, Berlin, London, and New York. The man would be selling his opals there of course. But again and again occurred lapses of time which Rubin could not localize. He asked the man point-blank where he regularly spent so, much valuable time. A shrug was the answer. Rubin tracked him by coach, train, and sea for nearly four thousand miles. The man visited practically unknown tiny places on the north-western Australian coast and finally stayed at a wild and woolly meeting-place of motley craft called Broome.
There Rubin started buying pearls; he knew no more about pearls than he had known about opals. A man would bring him a pearl and ask five hundred pounds. Rubin would examine the gem with the air of a connoisseur, then gruffly offer two hundred and fifty. Probably he would buy for three hundred or three hundred and fifty pounds. He got together a big parcel of selected pearls, took them to London and sold them at a handsome profit. This so impressed his bankers that they concluded he knew all about pearls.
I knew nothing about pearls when I went to London," be chuckled to Long Jimmy James. "But when I returned to Broome I knew more than the pearlers did. When I went to London the second time I knew more than the pearl-buyers did."
On his third trip to London he made a big deal. He returned in delight. Long Jimmy James called on business and congratulated him.
"I've got a valet now, Jimmy," Rubin chuckled. "I'll show him to you. Charles! Charles!" he called. James made himself comfortable on an easy chair as the man appeared.
"Whisky and soda!" promptly ordered James. That rather took Rubin's breath away.
Bankers gained great confidence in Rubin's shrewdness and judgment. Although much of it was bluffing, their confidence was not misplaced for he began to rise toward the millionaire class.
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