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.
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?"
"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.
"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 window 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.
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 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.
"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!"
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.
"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 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."
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.
"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 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 Yankelé ben Yitzchok of whom I told you."
Yankelé 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 conflicting 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 Yankelé 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."
"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, Yankelé," 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.
"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 Yankelé here is a connoisseur in fish, not easy to please. What say you, Yankelé?"
Yankelé munched a muffled approval.
"Help yourself to more bread and butter, Yankelé," 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?"
"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 Yankelé, 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!"
"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, Yankelé," said Manasseh, showing him to the door. "I am so glad you were able to come—you must come again."