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The King of Schnorrers

I. Zangwill

The King of Schnorrers GROTESQUES AND FANTASIES BY

I. ZANGWILL

Author of "Children of the Ghetto," "The Old Maids' Club," "Merely Mary Ann," etc. New York THE MACMILLAN COMPANY LONDON: MACMILLAN & CO., Ltd. 1909 All rights reserved Copyright, 1893, By MACMILLAN AND CO. Set up and electrotyped January, 1894. Reprinted April, 1894; September, 1895; January, 1897; October, 1898; August, 1899; June, 1909. Norwood Press J. S. Cushing & Co.--Berwick & Smith Norwood Mass. U.S.A. Foreword to "The King of Schnorrers." These episodes make no claim to veracity, while the personages are not even sun-myths. I have merely amused myself and attempted to amuse idlers by incarnating the floating tradition of the Jewish Schnorrer, who is as unique among beggars as Israel among nations. The close of the eighteenth century was chosen for a background, because, while the most picturesque period of Anglo-Jewish history, it has never before been exploited in fiction, whether by novelists or historians. To my friend, Mr. Asher I. Myers, I am indebted for access to his unique collection of Jewish prints and caricatures of the period, and I have not been backward in schnorrinG suggestions from him and other private humourists. My indebtedness to my artists is more obvious, from my old friend George Hutchinson to my newer friend Phil May, who has been good enough to allow me to reproduce from his Annuals the brilliant sketches illustrating two of the shorter stories. Of these shorter stories it only remains to be said there are both tragic and comic, and I will not usurp the critic's prerogative by determining which is which. I. Z. That all men are beggars, 'tis very plain to see, Though some they are of lowly, and some of high degree: 1 Your ministers of State will say they never will allow That kings from subjects beg; but that you know is all bow-wow. Bow-wow-wow! Fol lol, etc. Old Play. Contents. PAGE The King of Schnorrers 1 Illustrated by George Hutchinson. The Semi-Sentimental Dragon157 Illustrated by Phil May. An Honest Log-Roller171 Illustrated by F. H. Townsend. A Tragi-Comedy of Creeds176 The Memory Clearing House183 Illustrated by A. J. Finberg. Mated by a Waiter205 Illustrated by Mark Zangwill. The Principal Boy242 Illustrated by F. H. Townsend and Mark Zangwill. An Odd Life259 Illustrated by F. H. Townsend. Cheating the Gallows273 Illustrated by George Hutchinson. Santa Claus297 Illustrated by Mark Zangwill. A Rose of the Ghetto302 Illustrated by A. J. Finberg. A Double-Barrelled Ghost320 Illustrated by Phil May. Vagaries of a Viscount334 Illustrated by F. H. Townsend. The Queen's Triplets 343 Illustrated by Irving Montagu. A Successful Operation364 Flutter-Duck: A Ghetto Grotesque369 Illustrated by Mark Zangwill. The King of Schnorrers. 2 CHAPTER I. SHOWING HOW THE WICKED PHILANTHROPIST WAS TURNED INTO A FISH-PORTER. In the days when Lord George Gordon became a Jew, and was suspected of insanity; when, out of respect for the prophecies, England denied her Jews every civic right except that of paying taxes; when the Gentleman's Magazine had ill words for the infidel alien; when Jewish marriages were invalid and bequests for Hebrew colleges void; when a prophet prophesying Primrose Day would have been set in the stocks, though Pitt inclined his private ear to Benjamin Goldsmid's views on the foreign loans--in those days, when Tevele Schiff was Rabbi in Israel, and Dr. de Falk, the Master of the Tetragrammaton, saint and Cabbalistic conjuror, flourished in Wellclose Square, and the composer of "The Death of Nelson" was a choir-boy in the Great Synagogue; Joseph Grobstock, pillar of the same, emerged one afternoon into the spring sunshine at the fag-end of the departing stream of worshippers. In his hand was a large canvas bag, and in his eye a twinkle. There had been a special service of prayer and thanksgiving for the happy restoration of his Majesty's health, and the cantor had interceded tunefully with Providence on behalf of Royal George and "our most amiable Queen, Charlotte." The congregation was large and fashionable--far more so than when only a heavenly sovereign was concerned--and so the courtyard was thronged with a string of Schnorrers (beggars), awaiting the exit of the audience, much as the vestibule of the opera-house is lined by footmen. They were a motley crew, with tangled beards and long hair that fell in curls, if not the curls of the period; but the gaberdines of the German Ghettoes had been in most cases exchanged for the knee-breeches and many-buttoned jacket of the Londoner. When the clothes one has brought from the Continent wear out, one must needs adopt the attire of one's superiors, or be reduced to buying. Many bore staves, and had their loins girded up with coloured handkerchiefs, as though ready at any moment to return from the Captivity. Their woebegone air was achieved almost entirely by not washing--it owed little to nature, to adventitious aids in the shape of deformities. The merest sprinkling boasted of physical afflictions, and none exposed sores like the lazars of Italy or contortions like the cripples of Constantinople. Such crude methods are eschewed in the fine art of schnorring. A green shade might denote weakness of sight, but the stone-blind man bore no braggart placard--his infirmity was an old established concern well known to the public, and conferring upon the proprietor a definite status in the community. He was no anonymous atom, such as drifts blindly through Christendom, vagrant and apologetic. Rarest of all sights in this pageantry of Jewish pauperdom was the hollow trouser-leg or the empty sleeve, or the wooden limb fulfilling either and pushing out a proclamatory peg. When the pack of Schnorrers caught sight of Joseph Grobstock, they fell upon him full-cry, blessing him. He, nothing surprised, brushed pompously through the benedictions, though the twinkle in his eye became a roguish gleam. Outside the iron gates, where the throng was thickest, and where some elegant chariots that had brought worshippers from distant Hackney were preparing to start, he came to a standstill, surrounded by clamouring Schnorrers, and dipped his hand slowly and ceremoniously into the bag. There was a moment of breathless expectation among the beggars, and Joseph Grobstock had a moment of exquisite consciousness of importance, as he stood there swelling in the sunshine. There was no middle class to speak of in the eighteenth-century Jewry; the world was divided into rich and poor, and the rich were very, very rich, and the poor very, very poor, so that everyone knew his station. Joseph Grobstock was satisfied with that in which it had pleased God to place him. He was a jovial, heavy-jowled creature, whose clean-shaven chin was doubling, and he was habited like a person of the first respectability in a beautiful blue body-coat with a row of big yellow buttons. The frilled shirt front, high collar of the very newest fashion, and copious white neckerchief showed off the massive fleshiness of the red throat. His hat was of the Quaker pattern, and his head did not fail of the periwig and the pigtail, the latter being heretical in name only. "DIPPED HIS HAND INTO THE BAG." What Joseph Grobstock drew from the bag was a small white-paper packet, and his sense of humour led him to place it in the hand furthest from his nose; for it was a broad humour, not a subtle. It enabled him to extract pleasure from seeing a fellow-mortal's hat rollick in the wind, but did little to alleviate the chase for his own. His jokes clapped you on the back, they did not tickle delicately. Such was the man who now became the complacent cynosure of all eyes, even of those that had no appeal in them, as soon as the principle of his eleemosynary operations had broken on the crowd. The first Schnorrer, feverishly tearing open his package, had found a florin, and, as by electricity, all except the blind beggar were aware that Joseph Grobstock was distributing florins. The distributor partook of the general consciousness, and his lips twitched. Silently he dipped again into the bag, and, selecting the hand nearest, put a second white package into it. A wave of joy brightened the grimy face, to change instantly to one of horror. "You have made a mistake--you have given me a penny!" cried the beggar. 3 "Keep it for your honesty," replied Joseph Grobstock imperturbably, and affected not to enjoy the laughter of the rest. The third mendicant ceased laughing when he discovered that fold on fold of paper sheltered a tiny sixpence. It was now obvious that the great man was distributing prize-packets, and the excitement of the piebald crowd grew momently. Grobstock went on dipping, lynx-eyed against second applications. One of the few pieces of gold in the lucky-bag fell to the solitary lame man, who danced in his joy on his sound leg, while the poor blind man pocketed his halfpenny, unconscious of ill-fortune, and merely wondering why the coin came swathed in paper. "DANCED ON HIS SOUND LEG." By this time Grobstock could control his face no longer, and the last episodes of the lottery were played to the accompaniment of a broad grin. Keen and complex was his enjoyment. There was not only the general surprise at this novel feat of alms; there were the special surprises of detail written on face after face, as it flashed or fell or frowned in congruity with the contents of the envelope, and for undercurrent a delicious hubbub of interjections and benedictions, a stretching and withdrawing of palms, and a swift shifting of figures, that made the scene a farrago of excitements. So that the broad grin was one of gratification as well as of amusement, and part of the gratification sprang from a real kindliness of heart--for Grobstock was an easy-going man with whom the world had gone easy. The Schnorrers were exhausted before the packets, but the philanthropist was in no anxiety to be rid of the remnant. Closing the mouth of the considerably lightened bag and clutching it tightly by the throat, and recomposing his face to gravity, he moved slowly down the street like a stately treasure-ship flecked by the sunlight. His way led towards Goodman's Fields, where his mansion was situate, and he knew that the fine weather would bring out Schnorrers enough. And, indeed, he had not gone many paces before he met a figure he did not remember having seen before. Leaning against a post at the head of the narrow passage which led to Bevis Marks was a tall, black-bearded, turbaned personage, a first glance at whom showed him of the true tribe. Mechanically Joseph Grobstock's hand went to the lucky-bag, and he drew out a neatly-folded packet and tendered it to the stranger. The stranger received the gift graciously, and opened it gravely, the philanthropist loitering awkwardly to mark the issue. Suddenly the dark face became a thunder-cloud, the eyes flashed lightning. "An evil spirit in your ancestors' bones!" hissed the stranger, from between his flashing teeth. "Did you come here to insult me?" "Pardon, a thousand pardons!" stammered the magnate, wholly taken aback. "I fancied you were a--a--a--poor man." "And, therefore, you came to insult me!" "No, no, I thought to help you," murmured Grobstock, turning from red to scarlet. Was it possible he had foisted his charity upon an undeserving millionaire? No! Through all the clouds of his own confusion and the recipient's anger, the figure of a Schnorrer loomed too plain for mistake. None but a Schnorrer would wear a home-made turban, issue of a black cap crossed with a white kerchief; none but a Schnorrer would unbutton the first nine buttons of his waistcoat, or, if this relaxation were due to the warmth of the weather, counteract it by wearing an over-garment, especially one as heavy as a blanket, with buttons the size of compasses and flaps reaching nearly to his shoe-buckles, even though its length were only congruous with that of his undercoat, which already reached the bottoms of his knee-breeches. Finally, who but a Schnorrer would wear this overcoat cloak-wise, with dangling sleeves, full of armless suggestion from a side view? Quite apart from the shabbiness of the snuff-coloured fabric, it was amply evident that the wearer did not dress by rule or measure. Yet the disproportions of his attire did but enhance the picturesqueness of a personality that would be striking even in a bath, though it was not likely to be seen there. The beard was jet black, sweeping and unkempt, and ran up his cheeks to meet the raven hair, so that the vivid face was framed in black; it was a long, tapering face with sanguine lips gleaming at the heart of a black bush; the eyes were large and lambent, set in deep sockets under black arching eyebrows; the nose was long and Coptic; the brow low but broad, with straggling wisps of hair protruding from beneath the turban. His right hand grasped a plain ashen staff. Worthy Joseph Grobstock found the figure of the mendicant only too impressive; he shrank uneasily before the indignant eyes. "I meant to help you," he repeated. "And this is how one helps a brother in Israel?" said the Schnorrer, throwing the paper contemptuously into the philanthropist's face. It struck him on the bridge of the nose, but impinged so mildly that he felt at once what was the matter. The packet was empty--the Schnorrer had drawn a blank; the only one the good-natured man had put into the bag. "IT STRUCK HIM ON THE BRIDGE OF THE NOSE." 4 The Schnorrer's audacity sobered Joseph Grobstock completely; it might have angered him to chastise the fellow, but it did not. His better nature prevailed; he began to feel shamefaced, fumbled sheepishly in his pocket for a crown; then hesitated, as fearing this peace-offering would not altogether suffice with so rare a spirit, and that he owed the stranger more than silver--an apology to wit. He proceeded honestly to pay it, but with a maladroit manner, as one unaccustomed to the currency. "You are an impertinent rascal," he said, "but I daresay you feel hurt. Let me assure you I did not know there was nothing in the packet. I did not, indeed." "Then your steward has robbed me!" exclaimed the Schnorrer excitedly. "You let him make up the packets, and he has stolen my money--the thief, the transgressor, thrice-cursed who robs the poor." "You don't understand," interrupted the magnate meekly. "I made up the packets myself." "Then, why do you say you did not know what was in them? Go, you mock my misery!" "Nay, hear me out!" urged Grobstock desperately. "In some I placed gold, in the greater number silver, in a few copper, in one alone--nothing. That is the one you have drawn. It is your misfortune." "My misfortune!" echoed the Schnorrer scornfully. "It is your misfortune--I did not even draw it. The Holy One, blessed be He, has punished you for your heartless jesting with the poor--making a sport for yourself of their misfortunes, even as the Philistines sported with Samson. The good deed you might have put to your account by a gratuity to me, God has taken from you. He has declared you unworthy of achieving righteousness through me. Go your way, murderer!" "Murderer!" repeated the philanthropist, bewildered by this harsh view of his action. "Yes, murderer! Stands it not in the Talmud that he who shames another is as one who spills his blood? And have you not put me to shame--if anyone had witnessed your almsgiving, would he not have laughed in my beard?" The pillar of the Synagogue felt as if his paunch were shrinking. "But the others--" he murmured deprecatingly. "I have not shed their blood--have I not given freely of my hard-earned gold?" "For your own diversion," retorted the Schnorrer implacably. "But what says the Midrash? There is a wheel rolling in the world--not he who is rich to-day is rich to-morrow, but this one He brings up, and this one He brings down, as is said in the seventy-fifth Psalm. Therefore, lift not up your horn on high, nor speak with a stiff neck." He towered above the unhappy capitalist, like an ancient prophet denouncing a swollen monarch. The poor man put his hand involuntarily to his high collar as if to explain away his apparent arrogance, but in reality because he was not breathing easily under the Schnorrer's attack. "You are an uncharitable man," he panted hotly, driven to a line of defence he had not anticipated. "I did it not from wantonness, but from faith in Heaven. I know well that God sits turning a wheel--therefore I did not presume to turn it myself. Did I not let Providence select who should have the silver and who the gold, who the copper and who the emptiness? Besides, God alone knows who really needs my assistance--I have made Him my almoner; I have cast my burden on the Lord." "Epicurean!" shrieked the Schnorrer. "Blasphemer! Is it thus you would palter with the sacred texts? Do you forget what the next verse says: 'Bloodthirsty and deceitful men shall not live out half their days'? Shame on you--you a Gabbai (treasurer) of the Great Synagogue. You see I know you, Joseph Grobstock. Has not the beadle of your Synagogue boasted to me that you have given him a guinea for brushing your spatterdashes? Would you think of offering him a packet? Nay, it is the poor that are trodden on--they whose merits are in excess of those of beadles. But the Lord will find others to take up his loans--for he who hath pity on the poor lendeth to the Lord. You are no true son of Israel." The Schnorrer's tirade was long enough to allow Grobstock to recover his dignity and his breath. "If you really knew me, you would know that the Lord is considerably in my debt," he rejoined quietly. "When next you would discuss me, speak with the Psalms-men, not the beadle. Never have I neglected the needy. Even now, though you have been insolent and uncharitable, I am ready to befriend you if you are in want." 5 "If I am in want!" repeated the Schnorrer scornfully. "Is there anything I do not want?" "You are married?" "You correct me--wife and children are the only things I do not lack." "No pauper does," quoth Grobstock, with a twinkle of restored humour. "No," assented the Schnorrer sternly. "The poor man has the fear of Heaven. He obeys the Law and the Commandments. He marries while he is young--and his spouse is not cursed with barrenness. It is the rich man who transgresses the Judgment, who delays to come under the Canopy." "Ah! well, here is a guinea--in the name of my wife," broke in Grobstock laughingly. "Or stay--since you do not brush spatterdashes--here is another." "In the name of my wife," rejoined the Schnorrer with dignity, "I thank you." "Thank me in your own name," said Grobstock. "I mean tell it me." "I am Manasseh Bueno Barzillai Azevedo da Costa," he answered simply. "A Sephardi!" exclaimed the philanthropist. "Is it not written on my face, even as it is written on yours that you are a Tedesco? It is the first time that I have taken gold from one of your lineage." "Oh, indeed!" murmured Grobstock, beginning to feel small again. "Yes--are we not far richer than your community? What need have I to take the good deeds away from my own people--they have too few opportunities for beneficence as it is, being so many of them wealthy; brokers and West India merchants, and--" "But I, too, am a financier, and an East India Director," Grobstock reminded him. "Maybe; but your community is yet young and struggling--your rich men are as the good men in Sodom for multitude. You are the immigrants of yesterday--refugees from the Ghettoes of Russia and Poland and Germany. But we, as you are aware, have been established here for generations; in the Peninsula our ancestors graced the courts of kings, and controlled the purse-strings of princes; in Holland we held the empery of trade. Ours have been the poets and scholars in Israel. You cannot expect that we should recognise your rabble, which prejudices us in the eyes of England. We made the name of Jew honourable; you degrade it. You are as the mixed multitude which came up with our forefathers out of Egypt." "Nonsense!" said Grobstock sharply. "All Israel are brethren." "Esau was the brother of Israel," answered Manasseh sententiously. "But you will excuse me if I go a-marketing, it is such a pleasure to handle gold." There was a note of wistful pathos in the latter remark which took off the edge of the former, and touched Joseph with compunction for bandying words with a hungry man whose loved ones were probably starving patiently at home. "Certainly, haste away," he said kindly. "I shall see you again," said Manasseh, with a valedictory wave of his hand, and digging his staff into the cobblestones he journeyed forwards without bestowing a single backward glance upon his benefactor. Grobstock's road took him to Petticoat Lane in the wake of Manasseh. He had no intention of following him, but did not see why he should change his route for fear of the Schnorrer, more especially as Manasseh did not look back. By this time he had become conscious again of the bag he carried, but he had no heart to proceed with the fun. He felt conscience stricken, and had recourse to his pockets instead in his progress through the narrow jostling market-street, where he scarcely ever bought anything personally save fish and good deeds. He was a connoisseur in both. To-day he picked up many a good deed cheap, paying pennies for articles he did not take away--shoe-latchets and cane-strings, barley-sugar and butter-cakes. Suddenly, through a chink in an opaque mass of human 6 beings, he caught sight of a small attractive salmon on a fishmonger's slab. His eye glittered, his chops watered. He elbowed his way to the vendor, whose eye caught a corresponding gleam, and whose finger went to his hat in respectful greeting. "Good afternoon, Jonathan," said Grobstock jovially, "I'll take that salmon there--how much?" "Pardon me," said a voice in the crowd, "I am just bargaining for it." Grobstock started. It was the voice of Manasseh. "Stop that nonsense, da Costa," responded the fishmonger. "You know you won't give me my price. It is the only one I have left," he added, half for the benefit of Grobstock. "I couldn't let it go under a couple of guineas." "Here's your money," cried Manasseh with passionate contempt, and sent two golden coins spinning musically upon the slab. In the crowd sensation, in Grobstock's breast astonishment, indignation, and bitterness. He was struck momentarily dumb. His face purpled. The scales of the salmon shone like a celestial vision that was fading from him by his own stupidity. "I'll take that salmon, Jonathan," he repeated, spluttering. "Three guineas." "Pardon me," repeated Manasseh, "it is too late. This is not an auction." He seized the fish by the tail. Grobstock turned upon him, goaded to the point of apoplexy. "You!" he cried. "You--you--rogue! How dare you buy salmon!" "'YOU ROGUE! HOW DARE YOU BUY SALMON!'" "Rogue yourself !" retorted Manasseh. "Would you have me steal salmon?" "You have stolen my money, knave, rascal!" "Murderer! Shedder of blood! Did you not give me the money as a free-will offering, for the good of your wife's soul? I call on you before all these witnesses to confess yourself a slanderer!" "Slanderer, indeed! I repeat, you are a knave and a jackanapes. You--a pauper--a beggar--with a wife and children. How can you have the face to go and spend two guineas--two whole guineas--all you have in the world--on a mere luxury like salmon?" Manasseh elevated his arched eyebrows. "If I do not buy salmon when I have two guineas," he answered quietly, "when shall I buy salmon? As you say, it is a luxury; very dear. It is only on rare occasions like this that my means run to it." There was a dignified pathos about the rebuke that mollified the magnate. He felt that there was reason in the beggar's point of view--though it was a point to which he would never himself have risen, unaided. But righteous anger still simmered in him; he felt vaguely that there was something to be said in reply, though he also felt that even if he knew what it was, it would have to be said in a lower key to correspond with Manasseh's transition from the high pitch of the opening passages. Not finding the requisite repartee he was silent. "In the name of my wife," went on Manasseh, swinging the salmon by the tail, "I ask you to clear my good name which you have bespattered in the presence of my very tradesmen. Again I call upon you to confess before these witnesses that you gave me the money yourself in charity. Come! Do you deny it?" "No, I don't deny it," murmured Grobstock, unable to understand why he appeared to himself like a whipped cur, or how what should have been a boast had been transformed into an apology to a beggar. "In the name of my wife, I thank you," said Manasseh. "She loves salmon, and fries with unction. And now, since you have no further use for that bag of yours, I will relieve you of its burden by taking my salmon home in it." He took the canvas bag from the limp grasp of the astonished Tedesco, and dropped the fish in. The head protruded, surveying the scene with a cold, glassy, ironical eye. 7 "THE HEAD PROTRUDED." "Good afternoon all," said the Schnorrer courteously. "One moment," called out the philanthropist, when he found his tongue. "The bag is not empty--there are a number of packets still left in it." "So much the better!" said Manasseh soothingly. "You will be saved from the temptation to continue shedding the blood of the poor, and I shall be saved from spending all your bounty upon salmon--an extravagance you were right to deplore." "But--but!" began Grobstock. "No--no 'buts,'" protested Manasseh, waving his bag deprecatingly. "You were right. You admitted you were wrong before; shall I be less magnanimous now? In the presence of all these witnesses I acknowledge the justice of your rebuke. I ought not to have wasted two guineas on one fish. It was not worth it. Come over here, and I will tell you something." He walked out of earshot of the by-standers, turning down a side alley opposite the stall, and beckoned with his salmon bag. The East India Director had no course but to obey. He would probably have followed him in any case, to have it out with him, but now he had a humiliating sense of being at the Schnorrer's beck and call. "Well, what more have you to say?" he demanded gruffly. "I wish to save you money in future," said the beggar in low, confidential tones. "That Jonathan is a son of the separation! The salmon is not worth two guineas--no, on my soul! If you had not come up I should have got it for twenty-five shillings. Jonathan stuck on the price when he thought you would buy. I trust you will not let me be the loser by your arrival, and that if I should find less than seventeen shillings in the bag you will make it up to me." The bewildered financier felt his grievance disappearing as by sleight of hand. Manasseh added winningly: "I know you are a gentleman, capable of behaving as finely as any Sephardi." This handsome compliment completed the Schnorrer's victory, which was sealed by his saying, "And so I should not like you to have it on your soul that you had done a poor man out of a few shillings." Grobstock could only remark meekly: "You will find more than seventeen shillings in the bag." "Ah, why were you born a Tedesco!" cried Manasseh ecstatically. "Do you know what I have a mind to do? To come and be your Sabbath-guest! Yes, I will take supper with you next Friday, and we will welcome the Bride--the holy Sabbath--together! Never before have I sat at the table of a Tedesco--but you--you are a man after my own heart. Your soul is a son of Spain. Next Friday at six--do not forget." "But--but I do not have Sabbath-guests," faltered Grobstock. "Not have Sabbath-guests! No, no, I will not believe you are of the sons of Belial, whose table is spread only for the rich, who do not proclaim your equality with the poor even once a week. It is your fine nature that would hide its benefactions. Do not I, Manasseh Bueno Barzillai Azevedo da Costa, have at my Sabbath-table every week Yankele ben Yitzchok--a Pole? And if I have a Tedesco at my table, why should I draw the line there? Why should I not permit you, a Tedesco, to return the hospitality to me, a Sephardi? At six, then! I know your house well--it is an elegant building that does credit to your taste--do not be uneasy--I shall not fail to be punctual. A Dios!" This time he waved his stick fraternally, and stalked down a turning. For an instant Grobstock stood glued to the spot, crushed by a sense of the inevitable. Then a horrible thought occurred to him. "WAVED HIS STICK FRATERNALLY." Easy-going man as he was, he might put up with the visitation of Manasseh. But then he had a wife, and, what was worse, a livery 8 servant. How could he expect a livery servant to tolerate such a guest? He might fly from the town on Friday evening, but that would necessitate troublesome explanations. And Manasseh would come again the next Friday. That was certain. Manasseh would be like grim death--his coming, though it might be postponed, was inevitable. Oh, it was too terrible. At all costs he must revoke the invitation(?). Placed between Scylla and Charybdis, between Manasseh and his manservant, he felt he could sooner face the former. "Da Costa!" he called in agony. "Da Costa!" The Schnorrer turned, and then Grobstock found he was mistaken in imagining he preferred to face da Costa. "You called me?" enquired the beggar. "Ye--e--s," faltered the East India Director, and stood paralysed. "What can I do for you?" said Manasseh graciously. "Would you mind--very much--if I--if I asked you--" "Not to come," was in his throat, but stuck there. "If you asked me--" said Manasseh encouragingly. "To accept some of my clothes," flashed Grobstock, with a sudden inspiration. After all, Manasseh was a fine figure of a man. If he could get him to doff those musty garments of his he might almost pass him off as a prince of the blood, foreign by his beard--at any rate he could be certain of making him acceptable to the livery servant. He breathed freely again at this happy solution of the situation. "Your cast-off clothes?" asked Manasseh. Grobstock was not sure whether the tone was supercilious or eager. He hastened to explain. "No, not quite that. Second-hand things I am still wearing. My old clothes were already given away at Passover to Simeon the Psalms-man. These are comparatively new." "Then I would beg you to excuse me," said Manasseh, with a stately wave of the bag. "Oh, but why not?" murmured Grobstock, his blood running cold again. "I cannot," said Manasseh, shaking his head. "But they will just about fit you," pleaded the philanthropist. "That makes it all the more absurd for you to give them to Simeon the Psalms-man," said Manasseh sternly. "Still, since he is your clothes-receiver, I could not think of interfering with his office. It is not etiquette. I am surprised you should ask me if I should mind. Of course I should mind--I should mind very much." "But he is not my clothes-receiver," protested Grobstock. "Last Passover was the first time I gave them to him, because my cousin, Hyam Rosenstein, who used to have them, has died." "But surely he considers himself your cousin's heir," said Manasseh. "He expects all your old clothes henceforth." "No. I gave him no such promise." Manasseh hesitated. "Well, in that case--" "In that case," repeated Grobstock breathlessly. "On condition that I am to have the appointment permanently, of course." 9 "Of course," echoed Grobstock eagerly. "Because you see," Manasseh condescended to explain, "it hurts one's reputation to lose a client." "Yes, yes, naturally," said Grobstock soothingly. "I quite understand." Then, feeling himself slipping into future embarrassments, he added timidly, "Of course they will not always be so good as the first lot, because--" "Say no more," Manasseh interrupted reassuringly, "I will come at once and fetch them." "No. I will send them," cried Grobstock, horrified afresh. "I could not dream of permitting it. What! Shall I put you to all that trouble which should rightly be mine? I will go at once--the matter shall be settled without delay, I promise you; as it is written, 'I made haste and delayed not!' Follow me!" Grobstock suppressed a groan. Here had all his manoeuvring landed him in a worse plight than ever. He would have to present Manasseh to the liv-ery servant without even that clean face which might not unreasonably have been expected for the Sabbath. Despite the text quoted by the erudite Schnorrer, he strove to put off the evil hour. "Had you not better take the salmon home to your wife first?" said he. "My duty is to enable you to complete your good deed at once. My wife is unaware of the salmon. She is in no suspense." Even as the Schnorrer spake it flashed upon Grobstock that Manasseh was more presentable with the salmon than without it--in fact, that the salmon was the salvation of the situation. When Grobstock bought fish he often hired a man to carry home the spoil. Manasseh would have all the air of such a loafer. Who would suspect that the fish and even the bag belonged to the porter, though purchased with the gentleman's money? Grobstock silently thanked Providence for the ingenious way in which it had contrived to save his self-respect. As a mere fish-carrier Manasseh would attract no second glance from the household; once safely in, it would be comparatively easy to smuggle him out, and when he did come on Friday night it would be in the metamorphosing glories of a body-coat, with his unspeakable undergarment turned into a shirt and his turban knocked into a cocked hat. They emerged into Aldgate, and then turned down Leman Street, a fashionable quarter, and so into Great Prescott Street. At the critical street corner Grobstock's composure began to desert him: he took out his handsomely ornamented snuff-box and administered to himself a mighty pinch. It did him good, and he walked on and was well nigh arrived at his own door when Manasseh suddenly caught him by a coat button. "ADMINISTERED A MIGHTY PINCH." "Stand still a second," he cried imperatively. "What is it?" murmured Grobstock, in alarm. "You have spilt snuff all down your coat front," Manasseh replied severely. "Hold the bag a moment while I brush it off." Joseph obeyed, and Manasseh scrupulously removed every particle with such patience that Grobstock's was exhausted. "Thank you," he said at last, as politely as he could. "That will do." "No, it will not do," replied Manasseh. "I cannot have my coat spoiled. By the time it comes to me it will be a mass of stains if I don't look after it." "Oh, is that why you took so much trouble?" said Grobstock, with an uneasy laugh. "Why else? Do you take me for a beadle, a brusher of gaiters?" enquired Manasseh haughtily. "There now! that is the cleanest I can get it. You would escape these droppings if you held your snuff-box so--" Manasseh gently took the snuff-box and began to explain, walking on a few paces. "Ah, we are at home!" he cried, breaking off the object-lesson suddenly. He pushed open the gate, ran up the steps of the mansion 10 and knocked thunderously, then snuffed himself magnificently from the bejewelled snuff-box. Behind came Joseph Grobstock, slouching limply, and carrying Manasseh da Costa's fish. CHAPTER II. SHOWING HOW THE KING REIGNED. When he realised that he had been turned into a fish-porter, the financier hastened up the steps so as to be at the Schnorrer's side when the door opened. The livery-servant was visibly taken aback by the spectacle of their juxtaposition. "This salmon to the cook!" cried Grobstock desperately, handing him the bag. "'THIS SALMON TO THE COOK!'" Da Costa looked thunders, and was about to speak, but Grobstock's eye sought his in frantic appeal. "Wait a minute; I will settle with you," he cried, congratulating himself on a phrase that would carry another meaning to Wilkinson's ears. He drew a breath of relief when the flunkey disappeared, and left them standing in the spacious hall with its statues and plants. "Is this the way you steal my salmon, after all?" demanded da Costa hotly. "Hush, hush! I didn't mean to steal it! I will pay you for it!" "I refuse to sell! You coveted it from the first--you have broken the Tenth Commandment, even as these stone figures violate the Second. Your invitation to me to accompany you here at once was a mere trick. Now I understand why you were so eager." "No, no, da Costa. Seeing that you placed the fish in my hands, I had no option but to give it to Wilkinson, because--because--" Grobstock would have had some difficulty in explaining, but Manasseh saved him the pain. "You had to give my fish to Wilkinson!" he interrupted. "Sir, I thought you were a fine man, a man of honour. I admit that I placed my fish in your hands. But because I had no hesitation in allowing you to carry it, this is how you repay my confidence!" In the whirl of his thoughts Grobstock grasped at the word "repay" as a swimmer in a whirlpool grasps at a straw. "I will repay your money!" he cried. "Here are your two guineas. You will get another salmon, and more cheaply. As you pointed out, you could have got this for twenty-five shillings." "Two guineas!" ejaculated Manasseh contemptuously. "Why you offered Jonathan, the fishmonger, three!" Grobstock was astounded, but it was beneath him to bargain. And he remembered that, after all, he would enjoy the salmon. "Well, here are three guineas," he said pacifically, offering them. "Three guineas!" echoed Manasseh, spurning them. "And what of my profit?" "Profit!" gasped Grobstock. "Since you have made me a middle-man, since you have forced me into the fish trade, I must have my profits like anybody else." "Here is a crown extra!" "And my compensation?" "What do you mean?" enquired Grobstock, exasperated. "Compensation for what?" 11 "For what? For two things at the very least," Manasseh said unswervingly. "In the first place," and as he began his logically divided reply his tone assumed the sing-song sacred to Talmudical dialectics, "compensation for not eating the salmon myself. For it is not as if I offered it you--I merely entrusted it to you, and it is ordained in Exodus that if a man shall deliver unto his neighbour an ass, or an ox, or a sheep, or any beast to keep, then for every matter of trespass, whether it be for ox, for ass, for sheep, for raiment, or for any manner of lost thing, the man shall receive double, and therefore you should pay me six guineas. And secondly--" "Not another farthing!" spluttered Grobstock, red as a turkey-cock. "Very well," said the Schnorrer imperturbably, and, lifting up his voice, he called "Wilkinson!" "Hush!" commanded Grobstock. "What are you doing?" "I will tell Wilkinson to bring back my property." "Wilkinson will not obey you." "Not obey me! A servant! Why he is not even black! All the Sephardim I visit have black pages--much grander than Wilkinson-- and they tremble at my nod. At Baron D'Aguilar's mansion in Broad Street Buildings there is a retinue of twenty-four servants, and they--" "And what is your second claim?" "Compensation for being degraded to fishmongering. I am not of those who sell things in the streets. I am a son of the Law, a student of the Talmud." "If a crown piece will satisfy each of these claims--" "I am not a blood-sucker--as it is said in the Talmud, Tractate Passover, 'God loves the man who gives not way to wrath nor stickles for his rights'--that makes altogether three guineas and three crowns." "Yes. Here they are." Wilkinson reappeared. "You called me, sir?" he said. "No, I called you," said Manasseh, "I wished to give you a crown." And he handed him one of the three. Wilkinson took it, stupefied, and retired. "Did I not get rid of him cleverly?" said Manasseh. "You see how he obeys me!" "Ye-es." "I shall not ask you for more than the bare crown I gave him to save your honour." "To save my honour!" "Would you have had me tell him the real reason I called him was that his master was a thief ? No, sir, I was careful not to shed your blood in public, though you had no such care for mine." "Here is the crown!" said Grobstock savagely. "Nay, here are three!" He turned out his breeches-pockets to exhibit their absolute nudity. "No, no," said Manasseh mildly, "I shall take but two. You had best keep the other--you may want a little silver." He pressed it into the magnate's hand. 12 "You should not be so prodigal in future," he added, in kindly reproach. "It is bad to be left with nothing in one's pocket--I know the feeling, and can sympathise with you." Grobstock stood speechless, clasping the crown of charity. Standing thus at the hall door, he had the air of Wilkinson, surprised by a too generous vail. Da Costa cut short the crisis by offering his host a pinch from the jewel-crusted snuff-box. Grobstock greedily took the whole box, the beggar resigning it to him without protest. In his gratitude for this unexpected favour, Grobstock pocketed the silver insult without further ado, and led the way towards the second-hand clothes. He walked gingerly, so as not to awaken his wife, who was a great amateur of the siesta, and might issue suddenly from her apartment like a spider, but Manasseh stolidly thumped on the stairs with his staff. Happily the carpet was thick. The clothes hung in a mahogany wardrobe with a plateglass front in Grobstock's elegantly appointed bedchamber. Grobstock rummaged among them while Manasseh, parting the white Persian curtains lined with pale pink, gazed out of the win-dow towards the Tenterground that stretched in the rear of the mansion. Leaning on his staff, he watched the couples promenading among the sunlit parterres and amid the shrubberies, in the cool freshness of declining day. Here and there the vivid face of a dark-eyed beauty gleamed like a passion-flower. Manasseh surveyed the scene with bland benevolence; at peace with God and man. "GROBSTOCK RUMMAGED AMONG THEM." He did not deign to bestow a glance upon the garments till Grobstock observed: "There! I think that's all I can spare." Then he turned leisurely and regarded--with the same benign aspect--the litter Grobstock had spread upon the bed--a medley of articles in excellent condition, gorgeous neckerchiefs piled in three-cornered hats, and buckled shoes trampling on white waistcoats. But his eye had scarcely rested on them a quarter of a minute when a sudden flash came into it, and a spasm crossed his face. "Excuse me!" he cried, and hastened towards the door. "What's the matter?" exclaimed Grobstock, in astonished apprehension. Was his gift to be flouted thus? "I'll be back in a moment," said Manasseh, and hurried down the stairs. Relieved on one point, Grobstock was still full of vague alarms. He ran out on the landing. "What do you want?" he called down as loudly as he dared. "My money!" said Manasseh. Imagining that the Schnorrer had left the proceeds of the sale of the salmon in the hall, Joseph Grobstock returned to his room, and occupied himself half-mechanically in sorting the garments he had thrown higgledy-piggledy upon the bed. In so doing he espied amid the heap a pair of pantaloons entirely new and unworn which he had carelessly thrown in. It was while replacing this in the wardrobe that he heard sounds of objurgation. The cook's voice--Hibernian and high-pitched--travelled unmistakably to his ears, and brought fresh trepidation to his heart. He repaired to the landing again, and craned his neck over the balustrade. Happily the sounds were evanescent; in another minute Manasseh's head reappeared, mounting. When his left hand came in sight, Grobstock perceived it was grasping the lucky-bag with which a certain philanthropist had started out so joyously that afternoon. The unlucky-bag he felt inclined to dub it now. "I have recovered it!" observed the Schnorrer cheerfully. "As it is written, 'And David recovered all that the Amalekites had taken.' You see in the excitement of the moment I did not notice that you had stolen my packets of silver as well as my salmon. Luckily your cook had not yet removed the fish from the bag--I chid her all the same for neglecting to put it into water, and she opened her mouth not in wisdom. If she had not been a heathen I should have suspected her of trickery, for I knew nothing of the amount of money in the bag, saving your assurance that it did not fall below seventeen shillings, and it would have been easy for her to replace the fish. Therefore, in the words of David, will I give thanks unto Thee, O Lord, among the heathen." The mental vision of the irruption of Manasseh into the kitchen was not pleasant to Grobstock. However, he only murmured: "How came you to think of it so suddenly?" "Looking at your clothes reminded me. I was wondering if you had left anything in the pockets." The donor started--he knew himself a careless rascal--and made as if he would overhaul his garments. The glitter in Manasseh's 13 eye petrified him. "Do you--do you--mind my looking?" he stammered apologetically. "Am I a dog?" quoted the Schnorrer with dignity. "Am I a thief that you should go over my pockets? If, when I get home," he conceded, commencing to draw distinctions with his thumb, "I should find anything in my pockets that is of no value to anybody but you, do you fear I will not return it? If, on the other hand, I find anything that is of value to me, do you fear I will not keep it?" "No, but--but--" Grobstock broke down, scarcely grasping the argumentation despite his own clarity of financial insight; he only felt vaguely that the Schnorrer was--professionally enough--begging the question. "But what?" enquired Manasseh. "Surely you need not me to teach you your duty. You cannot be ignorant of the Law of Moses on the point." "The Law of Moses says nothing on the point!" "Indeed! What says Deuteronomy? 'When thou reapest thine harvest in thy field, and hast forgot a sheaf in the field, thou shalt not go again to fetch it: it shall be for the stranger, for the fatherless, and for the widow.' Is it not further forbidden to go over the boughs of thy olive-tree again, or to gather the fallen fruit of thy vineyard? You will admit that Moses would have added a prohibition against searching minutely the pockets of cast-off garments, were it not that for forty years our ancestors had to wander in the wilderness in the same clothes, which miraculously waxed with their growth. No, I feel sure you will respect the spirit of the law, for when I went down into your kitchen and examined the door-post to see if you had nailed up a mezuzah upon it, knowing that many Jews only flaunt mezuzahs on door-posts visible to visitors, it rejoiced me to find one below stairs." Grobstock's magnanimity responded to the appeal. It would be indeed petty to scrutinise his pockets, or to feel the linings for odd coins. After all he had Manasseh's promise to restore papers and everything of no value. "Well, well," he said pleasantly, consoled by the thought his troubles had now come to an end--for that day at least--"take them away as they are." "It is all very well to say take them away," replied Manasseh, with a touch of resentment, "but what am I to take them in?" "Oh--ah--yes! There must be a sack somewhere--" "And do you think I would carry them away in a sack? Would you have me look like an old clo' man? I must have a box. I see several in the box-room." "Very well," said Grobstock resignedly. "If there's an empty one you may have it." Manasseh laid his stick on the dressing-table and carefully examined the boxes, some of which were carelessly open, while every lock had a key sticking in it. They had travelled far and wide with Grobstock, who invariably combined pleasure with business. "MANASSEH CAREFULLY EXAMINED THE BOXES." "There is none quite empty," announced the Schnorrer, "but in this one there are only a few trifles--a pair of galligaskins and such like--so that if you make me a present of them the box will be empty, so far as you are concerned." "All right," said Grobstock, and actually laughed. The nearer the departure of the Schnorrer, the higher his spirits rose. Manasseh dragged the box towards the bed, and then for the first time since his return from the under-regions, surveyed the medley of garments upon it. The light-hearted philanthropist, watching his face, saw it instantly change to darkness, like a tropical landscape. His own face grew white. The Schnorrer uttered an inarticulate cry, and turned a strange, questioning glance upon his patron. "What is it now?" faltered Grobstock. "I miss a pair of pantaloons!" 14 "'I MISS A PAIR OF PANTALOONS!' HE SHRIEKED." Grobstock grew whiter. "Nonsense! nonsense!" he muttered. "I--miss--a--pair--of--pantaloons!" reiterated the Schnorrer deliberately. "Oh, no--you have all I can spare there," said Grobstock uneasily. The Schnorrer hastily turned over the heap. Then his eye flashed fire; he banged his fist on the dressing-table to accompany each staccato syllable. "I--miss--a--pair--of--pan--ta--loons!" he shrieked. The weak and ductile donor had a bad quarter of a minute. "Perhaps," he stammered at last, "you--m--mean--the new pair I found had got accidentally mixed up with them." "Of course I mean the new pair! And so you took them away! Just because I wasn't looking. I left the room, thinking I had to do with a man of honour. If you had taken an old pair I shouldn't have minded so much; but to rob a poor man of his brand-new breeches!" "I must have them," cried Grobstock irascibly. "I have to go to a reception to-morrow, and they are the only pair I shall have to wear. You see I--" "Oh, very well," interrupted the Schnorrer, in low, indifferent tones. After that there was a dead silence. The Schnorrer majestically folded some silk stockings and laid them in the box. Upon them he packed other garments in stern, sorrowful hauteur. Grobstock's soul began to tingle with pricks of compunction. Da Costa completed his task, but could not shut the overcrowded box. Grobstock silently seated his weighty person upon the lid. Manasseh neither resented nor welcomed him. When he had turned the key he mutely tilted the sitter off the box and shouldered it with consummate ease. Then he took his staff and strode from the room. Grobstock would have followed him, but the Schnorrer waved him back. "TILTED THE SITTER OFF THE BOX." "On Friday, then," the conscience-stricken magnate said feebly. Manasseh did not reply; he slammed the door instead, shutting in the master of the house. Grobstock fell back on the bed exhausted, looking not unlike the tumbled litter of clothes he replaced. In a minute or two he raised himself and went to the window, and stood watching the sun set behind the trees of the Tenterground. "At any rate I've done with him," he said, and hummed a tune. The sudden bursting open of the door froze it upon his lips. He was almost relieved to find the intruder was only his wife. "What have you done with Wilkinson?" she cried vehemently. She was a pale, puffy-faced, portly matron, with a permanent air of remembering the exact figure of her dowry. "With Wilkinson, my dear? Nothing." "Well, he isn't in the house. I want him, but cook says you've sent him out." "I? Oh, no," he returned, with dawning uneasiness, looking away from her sceptical gaze. Suddenly his pupils dilated. A picture from without had painted itself on his retina. It was a picture of Wilkinson--Wilkinson the austere, Wilkinson the unbending--treading the Tenterground gravel, curved beneath a box! Before him strode the Schnorrer. Never during all his tenure of service in Goodman's Fields had Wilkinson carried anything on his shoulders but his livery. Grobstock 15 would have as soon dreamt of his wife consenting to wear cotton. He rubbed his eyes, but the image persisted. He clutched at the window curtains to steady himself. "My Persian curtains!" cried his wife. "What is the matter with you?" "He must be the Baal Shem himself !" gasped Grobstock unheeding. "What is it? What are you looking at?" "N--nothing." Mrs. Grobstock incredulously approached the window and stared through the panes. She saw Wilkinson in the gardens, but did not recognise him in his new attitude. She concluded that her husband's agitation must have some connection with a beautiful brunette who was tasting the cool of the evening in a sedan chair, and it was with a touch of asperity that she said: "Cook complains of being insulted by a saucy fellow who brought home your fish." "Oh!" said poor Grobstock. Was he never to be done with the man? "How came you to send him to her?" His anger against Manasseh resurged under his wife's peevishness. "My dear," he cried, "I did not send him anywhere--except to the devil." "Joseph! You might keep such language for the ears of creatures in sedan chairs." And Mrs. Grobstock flounced out of the room with a rustle of angry satin. When Wilkinson reappeared, limp and tired, with his pompousness exuded in perspiration, he sought his master with a message, which he delivered ere the flood of interrogation could burst from Grobstock's lips. "Mr. da Costa presents his compliments, and says that he has decided on reconsideration not to break his promise to be with you on Friday evening." "Oh, indeed!" said Grobstock grimly. "And, pray, how came you to carry his box?" "You told me to, sir!" "I told you!" "I mean he told me you told me to," said Wilkinson wonderingly. "Didn't you?" Grobstock hesitated. Since Manasseh would be his guest, was it not imprudent to give him away to the livery-servant? Besides, he felt a secret pleasure in Wilkinson's humiliation--but for the Schnorrer he would never have known that Wilkinson's gold lace concealed a pliable personality. The proverb "Like master like man" did not occur to Grobstock at this juncture. "I only meant you to carry it to a coach," he murmured. "He said it was not worth while--the distance was so short." "Ah! Did you see his house?" enquired Grobstock curiously. "Yes; a very fine house in Aldgate, with a handsome portico and two stone lions." Grobstock strove hard not to look surprised. "I handed the box to the footman." 16 Grobstock strove harder. Wilkinson ended with a weak smile: "Would you believe, sir, I thought at first he brought home your fish! He dresses so peculiarly. He must be an original." "Yes, yes; an eccentric like Baron D'Aguilar, whom he visits," said Grobstock eagerly. He wondered, indeed, whether he was not speaking the truth. Could he have been the victim of a practical joke, a prank? Did not a natural aristocracy ooze from every pore of his mysterious visitor? Was not every tone, every gesture, that of a man born to rule? "You must remember, too," he added, "that he is a Spaniard." "Ah, I see," said Wilkinson in profound accents. "I daresay he dresses like everybody else, though, when he dines or sups out," Grobstock added lightly. "I only brought him in by accident. But go to your mistress! She wants you." "Yes, sir. Oh, by the way, I forgot to tell you he hopes you will save him a slice of his salmon." "Go to your mistress!" "You did not tell me a Spanish nobleman was coming to us on Friday," said his spouse later in the evening. "No," he admitted curtly. "But is he?" "No--at least, not a nobleman." "What then? I have to learn about my guests from my servants." "Apparently." "Oh! and you think that's right!" "To gossip with your servants? Certainly not." "If my husband will not tell me anything--if he has only eyes for sedan chairs." Joseph thought it best to kiss Mrs. Grobstock. "THOUGHT IT BEST TO KISS MRS. GROBSTOCK." "A fellow-Director, I suppose?" she urged, more mildly. "A fellow-Israelite. He has promised to come at six." Manasseh was punctual to the second. Wilkinson ushered him in. The hostess had robed herself in her best to do honour to a situation which her husband awaited with what hope he could. She looked radiant in a gown of blue silk; her hair was done in a tuft and round her neck was an "esclavage," consisting of festoons of gold chains. The Sabbath table was equally festive with its ponderous silver candelabra, coffee-urn, and consecration cup, its flower-vases, and fruit-salvers. The dining-room itself was a handsome apartment; its buffets glittered with Venetian glass and Dresden porcelain, and here and there gilt pedestals supported globes of gold and silver fish. At the first glance at his guest Grobstock's blood ran cold. Manasseh had not turned a hair, nor changed a single garment. At the next glance Grobstock's blood boiled. A second figure loomed in Manasseh's wake--a short Schnorrer, even dingier than da Costa, and with none of his dignity, a clumsy, stooping Schnorrer, with 17 a cajoling grin on his mud-coloured, hairy face. Neither removed his headgear. Mrs. Grobstock remained glued to her chair in astonishment. "Peace be unto you," said the King of Schnorrers, "I have brought with me my friend Yankele ben Yitzchok of whom I told you." Yankele nodded, grinning harder than ever. "You never told me he was coming," Grobstock rejoined, with an apoplectic air. "Did I not tell you that he always supped with me on Friday evenings?" Manasseh reminded him quietly. "It is so good of him to accompany me even here--he will make the necessary third at grace." The host took a frantic surreptitious glance at his wife. It was evident that her brain was in a whirl, the evidence of her senses con- flicting with vague doubts of the possibilities of Spanish grandeeism and with a lingering belief in her husband's sanity. Grobstock resolved to snatch the benefit of her doubts. "My dear," said he, "this is Mr. da Costa." "Manasseh Bueno Barzillai Azevedo da Costa," said the Schnorrer. The dame seemed a whit startled and impressed. She bowed, but words of welcome were still congealed in her throat. "And this is Yankele ben Yitzchok," added Manasseh. "A poor friend of mine. I do not doubt, Mrs. Grobstock, that as a pious woman, the daughter of Moses Bernberg (his memory for a blessing), you prefer grace with three." "'AND THIS IS YANKELE BEN YITZCHOK,' ADDED MANASSEH." "Any friend of yours is welcome!" She found her lips murmuring the conventional phrase without being able to check their output. "I never doubted that either," said Manasseh gracefully. "Is not the hospitality of Moses Bernberg's beautiful daughter a proverb?" Moses Bernberg's daughter could not deny this; her salon was the rendezvous of rich bagmen, brokers and bankers, tempered by occasional young bloods and old bucks not of the Jewish faith (nor any other). But she had never before encountered a personage so magnificently shabby, nor extended her proverbial hospitality to a Polish Schnorrer uncompromisingly musty. Joseph did not dare meet her eye. "Sit down there, Yankele," he said hurriedly, in ghastly genial accents, and he indicated a chair at the farthest possible point from the hostess. He placed Manasseh next to his Polish parasite, and seated himself as a buffer between his guests and his wife. He was burning with inward indignation at the futile rifling of his wardrobe, but he dared not say anything in the hearing of his spouse. "It is a beautiful custom, this of the Sabbath guest, is it not, Mrs. Grobstock?" remarked Manasseh as he took his seat. "I never neglect it--even when I go out to the Sabbath-meal as to-night." The late Miss Bernberg was suddenly reminded of auld lang syne: her father (who according to a wag of the period had divided his time between the Law and the profits) having been a depositary of ancient tradition. Perhaps these obsolescent customs, unsuited to prosperous times, had lingered longer among the Spanish grandees. She seized an early opportunity, when the Sephardic Schnorrer was taking his coffee from Wilkinson, of putting the question to her husband, who fell in weakly with her illusions. He knew there was no danger of Manasseh's beggarly status leaking out; no expressions of gratitude were likely to fall from that gentleman's lips. He even hinted that da Costa dressed so fustily to keep his poor friend in countenance. Nevertheless, Mrs. Grobstock, while not without admiration for the Quixotism, was not without resentment for being dragged into it. She felt that such charity should begin and end at home. "I see you did save me a slice of salmon," said Manasseh, manipulating his fish. 18 "What salmon was that?" asked the hostess, pricking up her ears. "One I had from Mr. da Costa on Wednesday," said the host. "Oh, that! It was delicious. I am sure it was very kind of you, Mr. da Costa, to make us such a nice present," said the hostess, her resentment diminishing. "We had company last night, and everybody praised it till none was left. This is another, but I hope it is to your liking," she finished anxiously. "Yes, it's very fair, very fair, indeed. I don't know when I've tasted better, except at the house of the President of the Deputados. But Yankele here is a connoisseur in fish, not easy to please. What say you, Yankele?" Yankele munched a muffled approval. "Help yourself to more bread and butter, Yankele," said Manasseh. "Make yourself at home--remember you're my guest." Silently he added: "The other fork!" Grobstock's irritation found vent in a complaint that the salad wanted vinegar. "How can you say so? It's perfect," said Mrs. Grobstock. "Salad is cook's speciality." Manasseh tasted it critically. "On salads you must come to me," he said. "It does not want vinegar," was his verdict; "but a little more oil would certainly improve it. Oh, there is no one dresses salad like Hyman!" Hyman's fame as the Kosher chef who superintended the big dinners at the London Tavern had reached Mrs. Grobstock's ears, and she was proportionately impressed. "They say his pastry is so good," she observed, to be in the running. "Yes," said Manasseh, "in kneading and puffing he stands alone." "Our cook's tarts are quite as nice," said Grobstock roughly. "We shall see," Manasseh replied guardedly. "Though, as for almond-cakes, Hyman himself makes none better than I get from my cousin, Barzillai of Fenchurch Street." "Your cousin!" exclaimed Grobstock, "the West Indian merchant!" "The same--formerly of Barbadoes. Still, your cook knows how to make coffee, though I can tell you do not get it direct from the plantation like the wardens of my Synagogue." Grobstock was once again piqued with curiosity as to the Schnorrer's identity. "You accuse me of having stone figures in my house," he said boldly, "but what about the lions in front of yours?" "I have no lions," said Manasseh. "Wilkinson told me so. Didn't you, Wilkinson?" "Wilkinson is a slanderer. That was the house of Nathaniel Furtado." Grobstock began to choke with chagrin. He perceived at once that the Schnorrer had merely had the clothes conveyed direct to the house of a wealthy private dealer. "Take care!" exclaimed the Schnorrer anxiously, "you are spluttering sauce all over that waistcoat, without any consideration for me." Joseph suppressed himself with an effort. Open discussion would betray matters to his wife, and he was now too deeply enmeshed in falsehoods by default. But he managed to whisper angrily, "Why did you tell Wilkinson I ordered him to carry your box?" 19 "To save your credit in his eyes. How was he to know we had quarrelled? He would have thought you discourteous to your guest." "That's all very fine. But why did you sell my clothes?" "You did not expect me to wear them? No, I know my station, thank God." "What is that you are saying, Mr. da Costa?" asked the hostess. "Oh, we are talking of Dan Mendoza," replied Grobstock glibly; "wondering if he'll beat Dick Humphreys at Doncaster." "Oh, Joseph, didn't you have enough of Dan Mendoza at supper last night?" protested his wife. "It is not a subject I ever talk about," said the Schnorrer, fixing his host with a reproachful glance. Grobstock desperately touched his foot under the table, knowing he was selling his soul to the King of Schnorrers, but too flaccid to face the moment. "No, da Costa doesn't usually," he admitted. "Only Dan Mendoza being a Portuguese I happened to ask if he was ever seen in the Synagogue." "If I had my way," growled da Costa, "he should be excommunicated--a bruiser, a defacer of God's image!" "By gad, no!" cried Grobstock, stirred up. "If you had seen him lick the Badger in thirty-five minutes on a twenty-four foot stage--" "Joseph! Joseph! Remember it is the Sabbath!" cried Mrs. Grobstock. "I would willingly exchange our Dan Mendoza for your David Levi," said da Costa severely. David Levi was the literary ornament of the Ghetto; a shoe-maker and hat-dresser who cultivated Hebrew philology and the Muses, and broke a lance in defence of his creed with Dr. Priestley, the discoverer of Oxygen, and Tom Paine, the discoverer of Reason. "Pshaw! David Levi! The mad hatter!" cried Grobstock. "He makes nothing at all out of his books." "You should subscribe for more copies," retorted Manasseh. "I would if you wrote them," rejoined Grobstock, with a grimace. "I got six copies of his Lingua Sacra," Manasseh declared with dignity, "and a dozen of his translation of the Pentateuch." "You can afford it!" snarled Grobstock, with grim humour. "I have to earn my money." "It is very good of Mr. da Costa, all the same," interposed the hostess. "How many men, born to great possessions, remain quite indifferent to learning!" "True, most true," said da Costa. "Men-of-the-Earth, most of them." After supper he trolled the Hebrew grace hilariously, assisted by Yankele, and ere he left he said to the hostess, "May the Lord bless you with children!" "Thank you," she answered, much moved. "You see I should be so pleased to marry your daughter if you had one." "You are very complimentary," she murmured, but her husband's exclamation drowned hers, "You marry my daughter!" 20 "Who else moves among better circles--would be more easily able to find her a suitable match?" "Oh, in that sense," said Grobstock, mollified in one direction, irritated in another. "In what other sense? You do not think I, a Sephardi, would marry her myself !" "My daughter does not need your assistance," replied Grobstock shortly. "Not yet," admitted Manasseh, rising to go; "but when the time comes, where will you find a better marriage broker? I have had a finger in the marriage of greater men's daughters. You see, when I recommend a maiden or a young man it is from no surface knowledge. I have seen them in the intimacy of their homes--above all I am able to say whether they are of a good, charitable disposition. Good Sabbath!" "Good Sabbath," murmured the host and hostess in farewell. Mrs. Grobstock thought he need not be above shaking hands, for all his grand acquaintances. "This way, Yankele," said Manasseh, showing him to the door. "I am so glad you were able to come--you must come again." CHAPTER III. SHOWING HOW HIS MAJESTY WENT TO THE THEATRE AND WAS WOOED. As Manasseh the Great, first beggar in Europe, sauntered across Goodman's Fields, attended by his Polish parasite, both serenely digesting the supper provided by the Treasurer of the Great Synagogue, Joseph Grobstock, a martial music clove suddenly the quiet evening air, and set the Schnorrers' pulses bounding. From the Tenterground emerged a squad of recruits, picturesque in white fatigue dress, against which the mounted officers showed gallant in blue surtouts and scarlet-striped trousers. "Ah!" said da Costa, with swelling breast. "There go my soldiers!" "'THERE GO MY SOLDIERS.'" "Your soldiers!" ejaculated Yankele in astonishment. "Yes--do you not see they are returning to the India House in Leadenhall Street?" "And vat of dat?" said Yankele, shrugging his shoulders and spreading out his palms. "What of that? Surely you have not forgotten that the clodpate at whose house I have just entertained you is a Director of the East India Company, whose soldiers these are?" "Oh," said Yankele, his mystified face relaxing in a smile. The smile fled before the stern look in the Spaniard's eyes; he hastened to conceal his amusement. Yankele was by nature a droll, and it cost him a good deal to take his patron as seriously as that potentate took himself. Perhaps if Manasseh Bueno Barzillai Azevedo da Costa had had more humour he would have had less momentum. Your man of action is blind in one eye. Caesar would not have come and conquered if he had really seen. Wounded by that temporary twinkle in his client's eye, the patron moved on silently, in step with the military air. "It is a beautiful night," observed Yankele in contrition. The words had hardly passed his lips before he became conscious that he had spoken the truth. The moon was peeping from behind a white cloud, and the air was soft, and broken shadows of foliage lay across the path, and the music was a song of love and bravery. Somehow, Yankele began to think of da Costa's lovely daughter. Her face floated in the moonlight. Manasseh shrugged his shoulders, unappeased. "When one has supped well, it is always a beautiful night," he said testily. It was as if the cloud had overspread the moon, and a thick veil had fallen over the face of da Costa's lovely daughter. But Yankele recovered himself quickly. "Ah, yes," he said, "you have indeed made it a beaudiful night for me." 21 The King of Schnorrers waved his staff deprecatingly. "It is alvays a beaudiful night ven I am mid you," added Yankele, undaunted. "It is strange," replied Manasseh musingly, "that I should have admitted to my hearth and Grobstock's table one who is, after all, but a half-brother in Israel." "But Grobstock is also a Tedesco," protested Yankele. "That is also what I wonder at," rejoined da Costa. "I cannot make out how I have come to be so familiar with him." "You see!" ventured the Tedesco timidly. "P'raps ven Grobstock had really had a girl you might even have come to marry her." "Guard your tongue! A Sephardi cannot marry a Tedesco! It would be a degradation." "Yes--but de oder vay round. A Tedesco can marry a Sephardi, not so? Dat is a rise. If Grobstock's daughter had married you, she vould have married above her," he ended, with an ingenuous air. "True," admitted Manasseh. "But then, as Grobstock's daughter does not exist, and my wife does--!" "Ah, but if you vas me," said Yankele, "vould you rader marry a Tedesco or a Sephardi?" "A Sephardi, of course. But--" "I vill be guided by you," interrupted the Pole hastily. "You be de visest man I have ever known." "But--" Manasseh repeated. "Do not deny it. You be! Instantly vill I seek out a Sephardi maiden and ved her. P'raps you crown your counsel by choosing von for me. Vat?" Manasseh was visibly mollified. "How do I know your taste?" he asked hesitatingly. "Oh, any Spanish girl would be a prize," replied Yankele. "Even ven she had a face like a Passover cake. But still I prefer a Pentecost blossom." "What kind of beauty do you like best?" "Your daughter's style," plumply answered the Pole. "But there are not many like that," said da Costa unsuspiciously. "No--she is like de Rose of Sharon. But den dere are not many handsome faders." Manasseh bethought himself. "There is Gabriel, the corpse-watcher's daughter. People consider his figure and deportment good." "Pooh! Offal! She's ugly enough to keep de Messiah from coming. Vy, she's like cut out of de fader's face! Besides, consider his oc- cupation! You vould not advise dat I marry into such a low family! Be you not my benefactor?" "Well, but I cannot think of any good-looking girl that would be suitable." Yankele looked at him with a roguish, insinuating smile. "Say not dat! Have you not told Grobstock you be de first of marriage-brokers?" 22 But Manasseh shook his head. "No, you be quite right," said Yankele humbly; "I could not get a really beaudiful girl unless I married your Deborah herself." "No, I am afraid not," said Manasseh sympathetically. Yankele took the plunge. "Ah, vy can I not hope to call you fader-in-law?" Manasseh's face was contorted by a spasm of astonishment and indignation. He came to a standstill. "Dat must be a fine piece," said Yankele quickly, indicating a flamboyant picture of a fearsome phantom hovering over a sombre moat. "'DAT MUST BE A FINE PIECE.'" They had arrived at Leman Street, and had stopped before Goodman's Fields Theatre. Manasseh's brow cleared. "It is The Castle Spectre," he said graciously. "Would you like to see it?" "But it is half over--" "Oh, no," said da Costa, scanning the play bill. "There was a farce by O'Keefe to start with. The night is yet young. The drama will be just beginning." "But it is de Sabbath--ve must not pay." Manasseh's brow clouded again in wrathful righteous surprise. "Did you think I was going to pay?" he gasped. "N-n-no," stammered the Pole, abashed. "But you haven't got no orders?" "Orders? Me? Will you do me the pleasure of accepting a seat in my box?" "In your box?" "Yes, there is plenty of room. Come this way," said Manasseh. "I haven't been to the play myself for over a year. I am too busy always. It will be an agreeable change." Yankele hung back, bewildered. "Through this door," said Manasseh encouragingly. "Come--you shall lead the way." "But dey vill not admit me!" "Will not admit you! When I give you a seat in my box! Are you mad? Now you shall just go in without me--I insist upon it. I will show you Manasseh Bueno Barzillai Azevedo da Costa is a man whose word is the Law of Moses; true as the Talmud. Walk straight through the portico, and, if the attendant endeavours to stop you, simply tell him Mr. da Costa has given you a seat in his box." Not daring to exhibit scepticism--nay, almost confident in the powers of his extraordinary protector, Yankele put his foot on the threshold of the lobby. "But you be coming, too?" he said, turning back. "Oh, yes, I don't intend to miss the performance. Have no fear." 23 Yankele walked boldly ahead, and brushed by the door-keeper of the little theatre without appearing conscious of him; indeed, the official was almost impressed into letting the Schnorrer pass unquestioned as one who had gone out between the acts. But the visitor was too dingy for anything but the stage-door--he had the air of those nondescript beings who hang mysteriously about the hinder recesses of playhouses. Recovering himself just in time, the functionary (a meek little Cockney) hailed the intruder with a backward-drawing "Hi!" "Vat you vant?" said Yankele, turning his head. "Vhere's your ticket?" "Don't vant no ticket." "Don't you? I does," rejoined the little man, who was a humorist. "Mr. da Costa has given me a seat in his box." "Oh, indeed! You'd swear to that in the box?" "By my head. He gave it me." "A seat in his box?" "Yes." "Mr. da Costa, you vos a-sayin', I think?" "The same." "Ah! this vay, then!" And the humorist pointed to the street. Yankele did not budge. "This vay, my lud!" cried the little humorist peremptorily. "I tells you I'm going into Mr. da Costa's box!" "And I tells you you're a-goin' into the gutter." And the official seized him by the scruff of the neck and began pushing him forwards with his knee. "Now then! what's this?" "'NOW THEN! WHAT'S THIS?'" A stern, angry voice broke like a thunderclap upon the humorist's ears. He released his hold of the Schnorrer and looked up, to behold a strange, shabby, stalwart figure towering over him in censorious majesty. "Why are you hustling this poor man?" demanded Manasseh. "He wanted to sneak in," the little Cockney replied, half apologetically, half resentfully. "Expect 'e 'ails from Saffron 'Ill, and 'as 'is eye on the vipes. Told me some gammon--a cock-and-bull story about having a seat in a box." "In Mr. da Costa's box, I suppose?" said Manasseh, ominously calm, with a menacing glitter in his eye. "Ye-es," said the humorist, astonished and vaguely alarmed. Then the storm burst. 24 "You impertinent scoundrel! You jackanapes! You low, beggarly rapscallion! And so you refused to show my guest into my box!" "Are you Mr. da Costa?" faltered the humorist. "Yes, I am Mr. da Costa, but you won't much longer be door-keeper, if this is the way you treat people who come to see your pieces. Because, forsooth, the man looks poor, you think you can bully him safely--forgive me, Yankele, I am so sorry I did not manage to come here before you, and spare you this insulting treatment! And as for you, my fine fellow, let me tell you that you make a great mistake in judging from appearances. There are some good friends of mine who could buy up your theatre and you and your miserable little soul at a moment's notice, and to look at them you would think they were cadgers. One of these days--hark you!--you will kick out a person of quality, and be kicked out yourself." "I--I'm very sorry, sir." "Don't say that to me. It is my guest you owe an apology to. Yes--and, by Heaven! you shall pay it, though he is no plutocrat, but only what he appears. Surely, because I wish to give a treat to a poor man who has, perhaps, never been to the play in his life, I am not bound to send him to the gallery--I can give him a corner in my box if I choose. There is no rule against that, I presume?" "No, sir, I can't say as there is," said the humorist humbly. "But you will allow, sir, it's rayther unusual." "Unusual! Of course, it's unusual. Kindness and consideration for the poor are always unusual. The poor are trodden upon at every opportunity, treated like dogs, not men. If I had invited a drunken fop, you'd have met him hat in hand (no, no, you needn't take it off to me now; it's too late). But a sober, poor man--by gad! I shall report your incivility to the management, and you'll be lucky if I don't thrash you with this stick into the bargain." "But 'ow vos I to know, sir?" "Don't speak to me, I tell you. If you have anything to urge in extenuation of your disgraceful behaviour, address your remarks to my guest." "You'll overlook it this time, sir," said the little humorist, turning to Yankele. "Next time, p'raps, you believe me ven I say I have a seat in Mr. da Costa's box," replied Yankele, in gentle reproach. "Well, if you're satisfied, Yankele," said Manasseh, with a touch of scorn, "I have no more to say. Go along, my man, show us to our box." The official bowed and led them into the corridor. Suddenly he turned back. "What box is it, please?" he said timidly. "Blockhead!" cried Manasseh. "Which box should it be? The empty one, of course." "But, sir, there are two boxes empty," urged the poor humorist deprecatingly, "the stage-box and the one by the gallery." "Dolt! Do I look the sort of person who is content with a box on the ceiling? Go back to your post, sir--I'll find the box myself-- Heaven send you wisdom--go back, some one might sneak in while you are away, and it would just serve you right." The little man slunk back half dazed, glad to escape from this overwhelming personality, and in a few seconds Manasseh stalked into the empty box, followed by Yankele, whose mouth was a grin and whose eye a twinkle. As the Spaniard took his seat there was a slight outburst of clapping and stamping from a house impatient for the end of the entr'acte. Manasseh craned his head over the box to see the house, which in turn craned to see him, glad of any diversion, and some people, imagining the applause had reference to the new-comer, whose head appeared to be that of a foreigner of distinction, joined in it. The contagion spread, and in a minute Manasseh was the cynosure of all eyes and the unmistakable recipient of an "ovation." He bowed twice or thrice in unruffled dignity. 25 "HE BOWED." There were some who recognised him, but they joined in the reception with wondering amusement. Not a few, indeed, of the audience were Jews, for Goodman's Fields was the Ghetto Theatre, and the Sabbath was not a sufficient deterrent to a lax generation. The audiences--mainly German and Poles--came to the little unfashionable playhouse as one happy family. Distinctions of rank were trivial, and gallery held converse with circle, and pit collogued with box. Supper parties were held on the benches. In a box that gave on the pit a portly Jewess sat stiffly, arrayed in the very pink of fashion, in a spangled robe of India muslin, with a diamond necklace and crescent, her head crowned by terraces of curls and flowers. "Betsy!" called up a jovial feminine voice from the pit, when the applause had subsided. "Betsy" did not move, but her cheeks grew hot and red. She had got on in the world, and did not care to recognise her old crony. "Betsy!" iterated the well-meaning woman. "By your life and mine, you must taste a piece of my fried fish." And she held up a slice of cold plaice, beautifully browned. Betsy drew back, striving unsuccessfully to look unconscious. To her relief the curtain rose, and The Castle Spectre walked. Yankele, who had scarcely seen anything but private theatricals, representing the discomfiture of the wicked Haman and the triumph of Queen Esther (a role he had once played himself, in his mother's old clothes), was delighted with the thrills and terrors of the ghostly melodrama. It was not till the conclusion of the second act that the emotion the beautiful but injured heroine cost him welled over again into matrimonial speech. "Ve vind up de night glorious," he said. "I am glad you like it. It is certainly an enjoyable performance," Manasseh answered with stately satisfaction. "Your daughter, Deborah," Yankele ventured timidly, "do she ever go to de play?" "No, I do not take my womankind about. Their duty lies at home. As it is written, I call my wife not 'wife' but 'home.'" "But dink how dey vould enjoy deirselves!" "We are not sent here to enjoy ourselves." "True--most true," said Yankele, pulling a smug face. "Ve be sent here to obey de Law of Moses. But do not remind me I be a sin-ner in Israel." "How so?" "I am twenty-five--yet I have no vife." "I daresay you had plenty in Poland." "By my soul, not. Only von, and her I gave gett (divorce) for barrenness. You can write to de Rabbi of my town." "Why should I write? It's not my affair." "But I vant it to be your affair." Manasseh glared. "Do you begin that again?" he murmured. "It is not so much dat I desire your daughter for a vife as you for a fader-in-law." "It cannot be!" said Manasseh more gently. 26 "Oh dat I had been born a Sephardi!" said Yankele with a hopeless groan. "It is too late now," said da Costa soothingly. "Dey say it's never too late to mend," moaned the Pole. "Is dere no vay for me to be converted to Spanish Judaism? I could easily pronounce Hebrew in your superior vay." "Our Judaism differs in no essential respect from yours--it is a question of blood. You cannot change your blood. As it is said, 'And the blood is the life.'" "I know, I know dat I aspire too high. Oh, vy did you become my friend, vy did you make me believe you cared for me--so dat I tink of you day and night--and now, ven I ask you to be my fader-in-law, you say it cannot be. It is like a knife in de heart! Tink how proud and happy I should be to call you my fader-in-law. All my life vould be devoted to you--my von thought to be vordy of such a man." "You are not the first I have been compelled to refuse," said Manasseh, with emotion. "Vat helps me dat dere be other Schlemihls (unlucky persons)?" quoted Yankele, with a sob. "How can I live midout you for a fader-in-law?" "I am sorry for you--more sorry than I have ever been." "Den you do care for me! I vill not give up hope. I vill not take no for no answer. Vat is dis blood dat it should divide Jew from Jew, dat it should prevent me becoming de son-in-law of de only man I have ever loved? Say not so. Let me ask you again--in a month or a year--even twelve months vould I vait, ven you vould only promise not to pledge yourself to anoder man." "But if I became your father-in-law--mind, I only say if--not only would I not keep you, but you would have to keep my Deborah." "And supposing?" "But you are not able to keep a wife!" "Not able? Who told you dat?" cried Yankele indignantly. "You yourself ! Why, when I first befriended you, you told me you were blood-poor." "Dat I told you as a Schnorrer. But now I speak to you as a suitor." "True," admitted Manasseh, instantly appreciating the distinction. "And as a suitor I tell you I can schnorr enough to keep two vives." "But do you tell this to da Costa the father or da Costa the marriage-broker?" "Hush!" from all parts of the house as the curtain went up and the house settled down. But Yankele was no longer in rapport with the play; the spectre had ceased to thrill and the heroine to touch. His mind was busy with feverish calculations of income, scraping together every penny he could raise by hook or crook. He even drew out a crumpled piece of paper and a pencil, but thrust them back into his pocket when he saw Manasseh's eye. "I forgot," he murmured apologetically. "Being at de play made me forget it was de Sabbath." And he pursued his calculations mentally; this being naturally less work. When the play was over the two beggars walked out into the cool night air. "I find," Yankele began eagerly in the vestibule, "I make at least von hundred and fifty pounds"--he paused to acknowledge the farewell salutation of the little door-keeper at his elbow--"a hundred and fifty a year." 27 "Indeed!" said Manasseh, in respectful astonishment. "Yes! I have reckoned it all up. Ten are de sources of charity--" "As it is written," interrupted Manasseh with unction, "'With ten sayings was the world created; there were ten generations from Noah to Abraham; with ten trials our father Abraham was tried; ten miracles were wrought for our fathers in Egypt and ten at the Red Sea; and ten things were created on the eve of the Sabbath in the twilight!' And now it shall be added, 'Ten good deeds the poor man affords the rich man.' Proceed, Yankele." "First comes my allowance from de Synagogue--eight pounds. Vonce a veek I call and receive half-a-crown." "Is that all? Our Synagogue allows three-and-six." "Ah!" sighed the Pole wistfully. "Did I not say you be a superior race?" "But that only makes six pound ten!" "I know--de oder tirty shillings I allow for Passover cakes and groceries. Den for Synagogue-knocking I get ten guin--" "Stop! stop!" cried Manasseh, with a sudden scruple. "Ought I to listen to financial details on the Sabbath?" "Certainly, ven dey be connected vid my marriage--vich is a Commandment. It is de Law ve really discuss." "You are right. Go on, then. But remember, even if you can prove you can schnorr enough to keep a wife, I do not bind myself to consent." "You be already a fader to me--vy vill you not be a fader-in-law? Anyhow, you vill find me a fader-in-law," he added hastily, seeing the blackness gathering again on da Costa's brow. "Nay, nay, we must not talk of business on the Sabbath," said Manasseh evasively. "Proceed with your statement of income." "Ten guineas for Synagogue-knocking. I have tventy clients who--" "Stop a minute! I cannot pass that item." "Vy not? It is true." "Maybe! But Synagogue-knocking is distinctly work!" "Vork?" "Well, if going round early in the morning to knock at the doors of twenty pious persons, and rouse them for morning service, isn't work, then the Christian bell-ringer is a beggar. No, no! Profits from this source I cannot regard as legitimate." "But most Schnorrers be Synagogue-knockers!" "Most Schnorrers are Congregation-men or Psalms-men," retorted the Spaniard witheringly. "But I call it debasing. What! To assist at the services for a fee! To worship one's Maker for hire! Under such conditions to pray is to work." His breast swelled with majesty and scorn. "I cannot call it vork," protested the Schnorrer. "Vy at dat rate you vould make out dat de minister vorks? or de preacher? Vy, I reckon fourteen pounds a year to my services as Congregation-man." "Fourteen pounds! As much as that?" "Yes, you see dere's my private customers as vell as de Synagogue. Ven dere is mourning in a house dey cannot alvays get together ten friends for de services, so I make von. How can you call that vork? It is friendship. And the more dey pay me de more friendship 28 I feel," asserted Yankele with a twinkle. "Den de Synagogue allows me a little extra for announcing de dead." In those primitive times, when a Jewish newspaper was undreamt of, the day's obituary was published by a peripatetic Schnorrer, who went about the Ghetto rattling a pyx--a copper money-box with a handle and a lid closed by a padlock. On hearing this death-rattle, anyone who felt curious would ask the Schnorrer: "Who's dead to-day?" "So-and-so ben So-and-so--funeral on such a day--mourning service at such an hour," the Schnorrer would reply, and the enquirer would piously put something into the "byx," as it was called. The collection was handed over to the Holy Society--in other words, the Burial Society. "P'raps you call that vork?" concluded Yankele, in timid challenge. "Of course I do. What do you call it?" "Valking exercise. It keeps me healty. Vonce von of my customers (from whom I schnorred half-a-crown a veek) said he was tired of my coming and getting it every Friday. He vanted to compound mid me for six pound a year, but I vouldn't." "But it was a very fair offer. He only deducted ten shillings for the interest on his money." "Dat I didn't mind. But I vanted a pound more for his depriving me of my valking exercise, and dat he vouldn't pay, so he still goes on giving me de half-crown a veek. Some of dese charitable persons are terribly mean. But vat I vant to say is dat I carry de byx mostly in the streets vere my customers lay, and it gives me more standing as a Schnorrer." "No, no, that is a delusion. What! Are you weak-minded enough to believe that? All the philanthropists say so, of course, but surely you know that schnorring and work should never be mixed. A man cannot do two things properly. He must choose his profession, and stick to it. A friend of mine once succumbed to the advice of the philanthropists instead of asking mine. He had one of the best provincial rounds in the kingdom, but in every town he weakly listened to the lectures of the president of the congregation inculcating work, and at last he actually invested the savings of years in jewellery, and went round trying to peddle it. The presidents all bought something to encourage him (though they beat down the price so that there was no profit in it), and they all expressed their pleasure at his working for his living, and showing a manly independence. 'But I schnorr also,' he reminded them, holding out his hand when they had finished. It was in vain. No one gave him a farthing. He had blundered beyond redemption. At one blow he had destroyed one of the most profitable connections a Schnorrer ever had, and without even getting anything for the goodwill. So if you will be guided by me, Yankele, you will do nothing to assist the philanthropists to keep you. It destroys their satisfaction. A Schnorrer cannot be too careful. And once you begin to work, where are you to draw the line?" "But you be a marriage-broker yourself," said Yankele imprudently. "That!" thundered Manasseh angrily, "That is not work! That is pleasure!" "Vy look! Dere is Hennery Simons," cried Yankele, hoping to divert his attention. But he only made matters worse. Henry Simons was a character variously known as the Tumbling Jew, Harry the Dancer, and the Juggling Jew. He was afterwards to become famous as the hero of a slander case which deluged England with pamphlets for and against, but for the present he had merely outraged the feelings of his fellow Schnorrers by budding out in a direction so rare as to suggest preliminary baptism. He stood now playing antic and sleight-of-hand tricks--surrounded by a crowd--a curious figure crowned by a velvet skull-cap from which wisps of hair protruded, with a scarlet handkerchief thrust through his girdle. His face was an olive oval, bordered by ragged tufts of beard and stamped with melancholy. "You see the results of working," cried Manasseh. "It brings temptation to work on Sabbath. That Epicurean there is profaning the Holy Day. Come away! A Schnorrer is far more certain of The-World-To-Come. No, decidedly, I will not give my daughter to a worker, or to a Schnorrer who makes illegitimate profits." "But I make de profits all de same," persisted Yankele. "You make them to-day--but to-morrow? There is no certainty about them. Work of whatever kind is by its very nature unreliable. At any moment trade may be slack. People may become less pious, and you lose your Synagogue-knocking. Or more pious--and 29 they won't want congregation-men." "But new Synagogues spring up," urged Yankele. "New Synagogues are full of enthusiasm," retorted Manasseh. "The members are their own congregation-men." Yankele had his roguish twinkle. "At first," he admitted, "but de Schnorrer vaits his time." Manasseh shook his head. "Schnorring is the only occupation that is regular all the year round," he said. "Everything else may fail--the greatest commercial houses may totter to the ground; as it is written, 'He humbleth the proud.' But the Schnorrer is always secure. Whoever falls, there are always enough left to look after him. If you were a father, Yankele, you would understand my feelings. How can a man allow his daughter's future happiness to repose on a basis so uncertain as work? No, no. What do you make by your district visiting? Everything turns on that." "Tventy-five shilling a veek!" "Really?" "Law of Moses! In sixpences, shillings, and half-crowns. Vy in Houndsditch alone, I have two streets all except a few houses." "But are they safe? Population shifts. Good streets go down." "Dat tventy-five shillings is as safe as Mocatta's business. I have it all written down at home--you can inspect de books if you choose." "No, no," said Manasseh, with a grand wave of his stick. "If I did not believe you, I should not entertain your proposal for a mo-ment. It rejoices me exceedingly to find you have devoted so much attention to this branch. I always held strongly that the rich should be visited in their own homes, and I grieve to see this personal touch, this contact with the very people to whom you give the good deeds, being replaced by lifeless circulars. One owes it to one's position in life to afford the wealthy classes the opportunity of charity warm from the heart; they should not be neglected and driven in their turn to write cheques in cold blood, losing all that hu- man sympathy which comes from personal intercourse--as it is written, 'Charity delivers from death.' But do you think charity that is given publicly through a secretary and advertised in annual reports has so great a redeeming power as that slipped privately into the hands of the poor man, who makes a point of keeping secret from every donor what he has received from the others?" "I am glad you don't call collecting de money vork," said Yankele, with a touch of sarcasm which was lost on da Costa. "No, so long as the donor can't show any 'value received' in return. And there's more friendship in such a call, Yankele, than in going to a house of mourning to pray for a fee." "Oh," said Yankele, wincing. "Den p'raps you strike out all my Year-Time item!" "Year-Time! What's that?" "Don't you know?" said the Pole, astonished. "Ven a man has Year-Time, he feels charitable for de day." "Do you mean when he commemorates the anniversary of the death of one of his family? We Sephardim call that 'making years'! But are there enough Year-Times, as you call them, in your Synagogue?" "Dere might be more--I only make about fifteen pounds. Our colony is, as you say, too new. De Globe Road Cemetery is as empty as a Synagogue on veek-days. De faders have left deir faders on de Continent, and kept many Year-Times out of de country. But in a few years many faders and moders must die off here, and every parent leaves two or tree sons to have Year-Times, and every child two or tree broders and a fader. Den every day more German Jews come here--vich means more and more to die. I tink indeed it vould be fair to double this item." "No, no; stick to facts. It is an iniquity to speculate in the misfortunes of our fellow-creatures." "Somebody must die dat I may live," retorted Yankele roguishly; "de vorld is so created. Did you not quote, 'Charity delivers from death'? If people lived for ever, Schnorrers could not live at all." 30 "Hush! The world could not exist without Schnorrers. As it is written, 'And Repentance and Prayer and Charity avert the evil decree.' Charity is put last--it is the climax--the greatest thing on earth. And the Schnorrer is the greatest man on earth; for it stands in the Talmud, 'He who causes is greater than he who does.' Therefore, the Schnorrer who causes charity is even greater than he who gives it." "Talk of de devil," said Yankele, who had much difficulty in keeping his countenance when Manasseh became magnificent and dithy-rambic. "Vy, dere is Greenbaum, whose fader vas buried yesterday. Let us cross over by accident and vish him long life." "Greenbaum dead! Was that the Greenbaum on 'Change, who was such a rascal with the wenches?" "De same," said Yankele. Then approaching the son, he cried, "Good Sabbath, Mr. Greenbaum; I vish you long life. Vat a blow for de community!" "It comforts me to hear you say so," said the son, with a sob in his voice. "Ah, yes!" said Yankele chokingly. "Your fader vas a great and good man--just my size." "'YOUR FADER VAS A GREAT AND GOOD MAN--JUST MY SIZE.'" "I've already given them away to Baruch the glazier," replied the mourner. "But he has his glaziering," remonstrated Yankele. "I have noting but de clothes I stand in, and dey don't fit me half so vell as your fader's vould have done." "Baruch has been very unfortunate," replied Greenbaum defensively. "He had a misfortune in the winter, and he has never got straight yet. A child of his died, and, unhappily, just when the snowballing was at its height, so that he lost seven days by the mourning." And he moved away. "Did I not say work was uncertain?" cried Manasseh. "Not all," maintained the Schnorrer. "What of de six guineas I make by carrying round de Palm-branch on Tabernacles to be shaken by de voomans who cannot attend Synagogue, and by blowing de trumpet for de same voomans on New Year, so dat dey may break deir fasts?" "The amount is too small to deserve discussion. Pass on." "Dere is a smaller amount--just half dat--I get from de presents to de poor at de Feast of Lots, and from de Bridegrooms of de Beginning and de Bridegrooms of de Law at de Rejoicing of de Law, and dere is about four pounds ten a year from de sale of clothes given to me. Den I have a lot o' meals given me--dis, I have reckoned, is as good as seven pounds. And, lastly, I cannot count de odds and ends under ten guineas. You know dere are alvays legacies, gifts, distributions--all unexpected. You never know who'll break out next." "Yes, I think it's not too high a percentage of your income to expect from unexpected sources," admitted Manasseh. "I have myself lingered about 'Change Alley or Sampson's Coffee House just when the jobbers have pulled off a special coup, and they have paid me quite a high percentage on their profits." "And I," boasted Yankele, stung to noble emulation, "have made two sov'rans in von minute out of Gideon de bullion-broker. He likes to give Schnorrers sov'rans, as if in mistake for shillings, to see vat dey'll do. De fools hurry off, or move slowly avay, as if not noticing, or put it quickly in de pocket. But dose who have visdom tell him he's made a mistake, and he gives dem anoder sov'ran. Honesty is de best policy with Gideon. Den dere is Rabbi de Falk, de Baal Shem--de great Cabbalist. Ven--" "But," interrupted Manasseh impatiently, "you haven't made out your hundred and fifty a year." Yankele's face fell. "Not if you cut out so many items." "No, but even all inclusive it only comes to a hundred and forty-three pounds nineteen shillings." 31 "Nonsense!" said Yankele, staggered. "How can you know so exact?" "Do you think I cannot do simple addition?" responded Manasseh sternly. "Are not these your ten items?"