Please help. I recently bought an expensive cutting. The ends were dry and brittle even though they arrived 2 days after purchase. Opinions please?

Take a knife and scratch away some bark in the middle. You should come in contact with the outer part of the live cambium vasculature (it will be green). If there is no green it may be dead. 

scratch the scion gently and look for green under outer area

The portion of inter-node in which the cut was made will eventually dry out and die back to the next node, if not waxed it happens faster. From what I can see in you picture, the cutting looks good lower down(not wrinkly and desicated).

Excellent. Thanks for the help.

BTW the cutting might be upside down

It looks upside down to me as well.
Do a search " Scion - Which Way is Up" or something like this.
There is a very nice photo which will help.

Take your pruning sheers and snip a little off the end and have another look.

Dry and brittle are not encouraging symptoms! Try soaking for a couple DAYS! It's not a matter of
how many days it took to get to you, it's when they were harvested, were the ends dipped in wax,
wrapped in cellophane, refrigerated? What did the cutting look like when it arrived?