chunk: They resort to chicanery to save the firm. They plan to send an agent to the Ural mountains who will claim to have found diamond mines. They speculate that the resulting plunge in the prices of diamonds in England and South Africa will force the dealers to get rid of their diamonds quickly at absurdly cheap rates to avoid total financial ruin, which would eventually fall on them if diamonds from the Urals start pouring in the market. They will then step in and buy as many diamonds as their remaining money would allow them. Once their capital is exhausted, their agent will disappear and the discovery that the Ural diamond mines were a hoax would skyrocket the prices of diamonds once again, leaving them rich men.