CHAPTER IV.
SHOWING HOW THE ROYAL WEDDING WAS ARRANGED.
Manasseh Bueno Barzillai Azevedo da Costa was so impressed by his would-be son-in-law's last argument that he perpended it in silence for a full minute. When he replied, his tone showed even more respect than had been infused into it by the statement of the aspirant's income. Manasseh was not of those to whom money is a fetish; he regarded it merely as something to be had for the asking. It was intellect for which he reserved his admiration. That was strictly not transferable.
"It is true," he said, "that if I yielded to your importunities and gave you my daughter, you would thereby have approved yourself a king of Schnorrers, of a rank suitable to my daughter's, but an analysis of your argument will show that you are begging the question."
"Vat more proof do you vant of my begging powers?" demanded Yankelé, spreading out his palms and shrugging his shoulders.
"Much greater proof," replied Manasseh. "I ought to have some instance of your powers. The only time I have seen you try to schnorr you failed."
"Me! ven?" exclaimed Yankelé indignantly.
"Why, this very night. When you asked young Weinstein for his dead father's clothes!"
"But he had already given them away!" protested the Pole.
"What of that? If anyone had given away my clothes, I should have demanded compensation. You must really be above rebuffs of that kind, Yankelé, if you are to be my son-in-law. No, no, I remember the dictum of the Sages: 'To give your daughter to an uncultured man is like throwing her bound to a lion.'"
"But you have also seen me schnorr mid success," remonstrated the suitor.
"Never!" protested Manasseh vehemently.
"Often!"
"From whom?"
"From you!" said Yankelé boldly.
"From me!" sneered Manasseh, accentuating the pronoun with infinite contempt. "What does that prove? I am a generous man. The test is to schnorr from a miser."
"I vill schnorr from a miser!" announced Yankelé desperately.
"You will!"
"Yes. Choose your miser."
"No, I leave it to you," said da Costa politely.
"Vell, Sam Lazarus, de butcher shop!"
"No, not Sam Lazarus, he once gave a Schnorrer I know elevenpence."
"Elevenpence?" incredulously murmured Yankelé.
"Yes, it was the only way he could pass a shilling. It wasn't bad, only cracked, but he could get no one to take it except a Schnorrer. He made the man give him a penny change though. 'Tis true the man afterwards laid out the shilling at Lazarus's shop. Still a really great miser would have added that cracked shilling to his hoard rather than the perfect penny."
"No," argued Yankelé, "dere vould be no difference, since he does not spend."
"True," said da Costa reflectively, "but by that same token a miser is not the most difficult person to tackle."
"How do you make dat out?"
"Is it not obvious? Already we see Lazarus giving away elevenpence. A miser who spends nothing on himself may, in exceptional cases, be induced to give away something. It is the man who indulges himself in every luxury and gives away nothing who is the hardest to schnorr from. He has a use for his money—himself! If you diminish his store you hurt him in the tenderest part—you rob him of creature comforts. To schnorr from such a one I should regard as a higher and nobler thing than to schnorr from a mere miser."
"Vell, name your man."
"No—I couldn't think of taking it out of your hands," said Manasseh again with his stately bow. "Whomever you select I will abide by. If I could not rely on your honour, would I dream of you as a son-in-law?"
"Den I vill go to Mendel Jacobs, of Mary Axe."
"Mendel Jacobs—oh, no! Why, he's married! A married man cannot be entirely devoted to himself."
"Vy not? Is not a vife a creature comfort? P'raps also she comes cheaper dan a housekeeper."
"We will not argue it. I will not have Mendel Jacobs."
"Simon Kelutski, de vine-merchant."
"He! He is quite generous with his snuff-box. I have myself been offered a pinch. Of course I did not accept it."
Yankelé selected several other names, but Manasseh barred them all, and at last had an inspiration of his own.
"Isn't there a Rabbi in your community whose stinginess is proverbial? Let me see, what's his name?"
"A Rabbi!" murmured Yankelé disingenuously, while his heart began to palpitate with alarm.
"Yes, isn't there—Rabbi Bloater!"
Yankelé shook his head. Ruin stared him in the face—his fondest hopes were crumbling.
"I know it's some fishy name—Rabbi Haddock—no it isn't. It's Rabbi Remorse something."
Yankelé saw it was all over with him.
"P'raps you mean Rabbi Remorse Red-herring," he said feebly, for his voice failed him.
"Ah, yes! Rabbi Remorse Red-herring," said Manasseh. "From all I hear—for I have never seen the man—a king of guzzlers and topers, and the meanest of mankind. Now if you could dine with him you might indeed be called a king of Schnorrers."
Yankelé was pale and trembling. "But he is married!" he urged, with a happy thought.
"Dine with him to-morrow," said Manasseh inexorably. "He fares extra royally on the Sabbath. Obtain admission to his table, and you shall be admitted into my family."
"But you do not know the man—it is impossible!" cried Yankelé.
"That is the excuse of the bad Schnorrer. You have heard my ultimatum. No dinner, no wife. No wife—no dowry!"
"Vat vould dis dowry be?" asked Yankelé, by way of diversion.
"Oh, unique—quite unique. First of all there would be all the money she gets from the Synagogue. Our Synagogue gives considerable dowries to portionless girls. There are large bequests for the purpose."
Yankelé's eyes glittered.
"Ah, vat gentlemen you Spaniards be!"
"Then I daresay I should hand over to my son-in-law all my Jerusalem land."
"Have you property in de Holy Land?" said Yankelé.
"First class, with an unquestionable title. And, of course, I would give you some province or other in this country."
"What!" gasped Yankelé.
"Could I do less?" said Manasseh blandly. "My own flesh and blood, remember! Ah, here is my door. It is too late to ask you in. Good Sabbath! Don't forget your appointment to dine with Rabbi Remorse Red-herring to-morrow."
"Good Sabbath!" faltered Yankelé, and crawled home heavy-hearted to Dinah's Buildings, Tripe Yard, Whitechapel, where the memory of him lingers even unto this day.
Rabbi Remorse Red-herring was an unofficial preacher who officiated at mourning services in private houses, having a gift of well-turned eulogy. He was a big, burly man with overlapping stomach and a red beard, and his spiritual consolations drew tears. His clients knew him to be vastly self-indulgent in private life, and abstemious in the matter of benevolence; but they did not confound the rôles. As a mourning preacher he gave every satisfaction: he was regular and punctual, and did not keep the congregation waiting, and he had had considerable experience in showing that there was yet balm in Gilead.
He had about five ways of showing it—the variants depending upon the circumstances. If, as not infrequently happened, the person deceased was a stranger to him, he would enquire in the passage: "Was it man or woman? Boy or girl? Married or single? Any children? Young 'uns or old 'uns?"
When these questions had been answered, he was ready. He knew exactly which of his five consolatory addresses to deliver—they were all sufficiently vague and general to cover considerable variety of circumstance, and even when he misheard the replies in the passage, and dilated on the grief of a departed widower's relict, the results were not fatal throughout. The few impossible passages might be explained by the mishearing of the audience. Sometimes—very rarely—he would venture on a supplementary sentence or two fitting the specific occasion, but very cautiously, for a man with a reputation for extempore addresses cannot be too wary of speaking on the spur of the moment.
Off obituary lines he was a failure; at any rate, his one attempt to preach from an English Synagogue pulpit resulted in a nickname. His theme was Remorse, which he explained with much care to the congregation.
"For instance," said the preacher, "the other day I was walking over London Bridge, when I saw a fishwife standing with a basket of red-herrings. I says, 'How much?' She says, 'Two for three-halfpence.' I says, 'Oh, that's frightfully dear! I can easily get three for twopence.' But she wouldn't part with them at that price, so I went on, thinking I'd meet another woman with a similar lot over the water. They were lovely fat herrings, and my chaps watered in anticipation of the treat of eating them. But when I got to the other end of the bridge there was no other fishwife to be seen. So I resolved to turn back to the first fishwife, for, after all, I reflected, the herrings were really very cheap, and I had only complained in the way of business. But when I got back the woman was just sold out. I could have torn my hair with vexation. Now, that's what I call Remorse."
After that the Rabbi was what the congregation called Remorse; also Red-herring.
The Rabbi's fondness for concrete exemplification of abstract ideas was not, however, to be stifled, and there was one illustration of Charity which found a place in all the five sermons of consolation.
"If you have a pair of old breeches, send them to the Rabbi."
Rabbi Remorse Red-herring was, however, as is the way of preachers, himself aught but a concrete exemplification of the virtues he inculcated. He lived generously—through other people's generosity—but no one could boast of having received a farthing from him over and above what was due to them; while Schnorrers (who deemed considerable sums due to them) regarded him in the light of a defalcating bankrupt. He, for his part, had a countervailing grudge against the world, fancying the work he did for it but feebly remunerated. "I get so little," ran his bitter plaint, "that I couldn't live, if it were not for the fasts." And, indeed, the fasts of the religion were worth much more to him than to Yankelé; his meals were so profuse that his savings from this source were quite a little revenue. As Yankelé had pointed out, he was married. And his wife had given him a child, but it died at the age of seven, bequeathing to him the only poignant sorrow of his life. He was too jealous to call in a rival consolation preacher during those dark days, and none of his own five sermons seemed to fit the case. It was some months before he took his meals regularly.
At no time had anyone else taken meals in his house, except by law entitled. Though she had only two to cook for, his wife habitually provided for three, counting her husband no mere unit. Herself she reckoned as a half.
It was with intelligible perturbation, therefore, that Yankelé, dressed in some other man's best, approached the house of Rabbi Remorse Red-herring about a quarter of an hour before the Sabbath mid-day meal, intent on sharing it with him.
"No dinner, no marriage!" was da Costa's stern ukase.
What wonder if the inaccessible meal took upon itself the grandiosity of a wedding feast! Deborah da Costa's lovely face tantalised him like a mirage.
The Sabbath day was bleak, but chiller was his heart. The Rabbi had apartments in Steward Street, Spitalfields, an elegant suite on the ground-floor, for he stinted himself in nothing but charity. At the entrance was a porch—a pointed Gothic arch of wood supported by two pillars. As Yankelé mounted the three wooden steps, breathing as painfully as if they were three hundred, and wondering if he would ever get merely as far as the other side of the door, he was assailed by the temptation to go and dine peacefully at home, and represent to da Costa that he had feasted with the Rabbi. Manasseh would never know, Manasseh had taken no steps to ascertain if he satisfied the test or not. Such carelessness, he told himself in righteous indignation, deserved fitting punishment. But, on the other hand, he recalled Manasseh's trust in him; Manasseh believed him a man of honour, and the patron's elevation of soul awoke an answering chivalry in the parasite.
He decided to make the attempt at least, for there would be plenty of time to say he had succeeded, after he had failed.
Vibrating with tremors of nobility as well as of apprehension, Yankelé lifted the knocker. He had no programme, trusting to chance and mother-wit.
Mrs. Remorse Red-herring half opened the door.
"I vish to see de Rabbi," he said, putting one foot within.
"He is engaged," said the wife—a tiny thin creature who had been plump and pretty. "He is very busy talking with a gentleman."
"Oh, but I can vait."
"But the Rabbi will be having his dinner soon."
"I can vait till after dinner," said Yankelé obligingly.
"Oh, but the Rabbi sits long at table."
"I don't mind," said Yankelé with undiminished placidity, "de longer de better."
The poor woman looked perplexed. "I'll tell my husband," she said at last.
Yankelé had an anxious moment in the passage.
"The Rabbi wishes to know what you want," she said when she returned.
"I vant to get married," said Yankelé with an inspiration of veracity.
"But my husband doesn't marry people."
"Vy not?"
"He only brings consolation into households," she explained ingenuously.
"Vell, I won't get married midout him," Yankelé murmured lugubriously.
The little woman went back in bewilderment to her bosom's lord. Forthwith out came Rabbi Remorse Red-herring, curiosity and cupidity in his eyes. He wore the skull-cap of sanctity, but looked the gourmand in spite of it.
"Good Sabbath, sir! What is this about your getting married?"
"It's a long story," said Yankelé, "and as your good vife told me your dinner is just ready, I mustn't keep you now."
"No, there are still a few minutes before dinner. What is it?"
Yankelé shook his head. "I couldn't tink of keeping you in dis draughty passage."
"I don't mind. I don't feel any draught."
"Dat's just vere de danger lays. You don't notice, and one day you find yourself laid up mid rheumatism, and you vill have Remorse," said Yankelé with a twinkle. "Your life is precious—if you die, who vill console de community?"
It was an ambiguous remark, but the Rabbi understood it in its most flattering sense, and his little eyes beamed. "I would ask you inside," he said, "but I have a visitor."
"No matter," said Yankelé, "vat I have to say to you, Rabbi, is not private. A stranger may hear it."
Still undecided, the Rabbi muttered, "You want me to marry you?"
"I have come to get married," replied Yankelé.
"But I have never been called upon to marry people."
"It's never too late to mend, dey say."
"Strange—strange," murmured the Rabbi reflectively.
"Vat is strange?"
"That you should come to me just to-day. But why did you not go to Rabbi Sandman?"
"Rabbi Sandman!" replied Yankelé with contempt. "Vere vould be de good of going to him?"
"But why not?"
"Every Schnorrer goes to him," said Yankelé frankly.
"Hum!" mused the Rabbi. "Perhaps there is an opening for a more select marrier. Come in, then, I can give you five minutes if you really don't mind talking before a stranger."
He threw open the door, and led the way into the sitting-room.
Yankelé followed, exultant; the outworks were already carried, and his heart beat high with hope. But at his first glance within, he reeled and almost fell.
Standing with his back to the fire and dominating the room was Manasseh Bueno Barzillai Azevedo da Costa!
"Ah, Yankelé, good Sabbath!" said da Costa affably.
"G-g-ood Sabbath!" stammered Yankelé.
"Why, you know each other!" cried the Rabbi.
"Oh, yes," said Manasseh, "an acquaintance of yours, too, apparently."
"No, he is just come to see me about something," replied the Rabbi.
"I thought you did not know the Rabbi, Mr. da Costa?" Yankelé could not help saying.
"I didn't. I only had the pleasure of making his acquaintance half an hour ago. I met him in the street as he was coming home from morning service, and he was kind enough to invite me to dinner."
Yankelé gasped; despite his secret amusement at Manasseh's airs, there were moments when the easy magnificence of the man overwhelmed him, extorted his reluctant admiration. How in Heaven's name had the Spaniard conquered at a blow!
Looking down at the table, he now observed that it was already laid for dinner—and for three! He should have been that third. Was it fair of Manasseh to handicap him thus? Naturally, there would be infinitely less chance of a fourth being invited than a third—to say nothing of the dearth of provisions. "But, surely, you don't intend to stay to dinner!" he complained in dismay.
"I have given my word," said Manasseh, "and I shouldn't care to disappoint the Rabbi."
"Oh, it's no disappointment, no disappointment," remarked Rabbi Remorse Red-herring cordially, "I could just as well come round and see you after dinner."
"After dinner I never see people," said Manasseh majestically; "I sleep."
The Rabbi dared not make further protest: he turned to Yankelé and asked, "Well, now, what's this about your marriage?"
"I can't tell you before Mr. da Costa," replied Yankelé, to gain time.
"Why not? You said anybody might hear."
"Noting of the sort. I said a stranger might hear. But Mr. da Costa isn't a stranger. He knows too much about de matter."
"What shall we do, then?" murmured the Rabbi.
"I can vait till after dinner," said Yankelé, with good-natured carelessness. "I don't sleep—"
Before the Rabbi could reply, the wife brought in a baked dish, and set it on the table. Her husband glowered at her, but she, regular as clockwork, and as unthinking, produced the black bottle of schnapps. It was her husband's business to get rid of Yankelé; her business was to bring on the dinner. If she had delayed, he would have raged equally. She was not only wife, but maid-of-all-work.
Seeing the advanced state of the preparations, Manasseh da Costa took his seat at the table; obeying her husband's significant glance, Mrs. Red-herring took up her position at the foot. The Rabbi himself sat down at the head, behind the dish. He always served, being the only person he could rely upon to gauge his capacities. Yankelé was left standing. The odour of the meat and potatoes impregnated the atmosphere with wistful poetry.
Suddenly the Rabbi looked up and perceived Yankelé. "Will you do as we do?" he said in seductive accents.
The Schnorrer's heart gave one wild, mad throb of joy. He laid his hand on the only other chair.
"I don't mind if I do," he said, with responsive amiability.
"Then go home and have your dinner," said the Rabbi.
Yankelé's wild heart-beat was exchanged for a stagnation as of death. A shiver ran down his spine. He darted an agonised appealing glance at Manasseh, who sniggered inscrutably.
"Oh, I don't tink I ought to go avay and leave you midout a tird man for grace," he said, in tones of prophetic rebuke. "Since I be here, it vould be a sin not to stay."
The Rabbi, having a certain connection with religion, was cornered; he was not able to repudiate such an opportunity of that more pious form of grace which needs the presence of three males.
"Oh, I should be very glad for you to stay," said the Rabbi, "but, unfortunately, we have only three meat-plates."
"Oh, de dish vill do for me."
"Very well, then!" said the Rabbi.
And Yankelé, with the old mad heart-beat, took the fourth chair, darting a triumphant glance at the still sniggering Manasseh.
The hostess rose, misunderstanding her husband's optical signals, and fished out a knife and fork from the recesses of a chiffonier. The host first heaped his own plate high with artistically coloured potatoes and stiff meat—less from discourtesy than from life-long habit—then divided the remainder in unequal portions between Manasseh and the little woman, in rough correspondence with their sizes. Finally, he handed Yankelé the empty dish.
"You see there is nothing left," he said simply. "We didn't even expect one visitor."
"First come, first served," observed Manasseh, with his sphinx-like expression, as he fell-to.
Yankelé sat frozen, staring blankly at the dish, his brain as empty. He had lost.
Such a dinner was a hollow mockery—like the dish. He could not expect Manasseh to accept it, quibbled he ever so cunningly. He sat for a minute or two as in a dream, the music of knife and fork ringing mockingly in his ears, his hungry palate moistened by the delicious savour. Then he shook off his stupor, and all his being was desperately astrain, questing for an idea. Manasseh discoursed with his host on neo-Hebrew literature.
"We thought of starting a journal at Grodno," said the Rabbi, "only the funds—"
"Be you den a native of Grodno?" interrupted Yankelé.
"Yes, I was born there," mumbled the Rabbi, "but I left there twenty years ago." His mouth was full, and he did not cease to ply the cutlery.
"Ah!" said Yankelé enthusiastically, "den you must be de famous preacher everybody speaks of. I do not remember you myself, for I vas a boy, but dey say ve haven't got no such preachers nowaday."
"In Grodno my husband kept a brandy shop," put in the hostess.
There was a bad quarter of a minute of silence. To Yankelé's relief, the Rabbi ended it by observing, "Yes, but doubtless the gentleman (you will excuse me calling you that, sir, I don't know your real name) alluded to my fame as a boy-Maggid. At the age of five I preached to audiences of many hundreds, and my manipulation of texts, my demonstrations that they did not mean what they said, drew tears even from octogenarians familiar with the Torah from their earliest infancy. It was said there never was such a wonder-child since Ben Sira."
"But why did you give it up?" enquired Manasseh.
"It gave me up," said the Rabbi, putting down his knife and fork to expound an ancient grievance. "A boy-Maggid cannot last more than a few years. Up to nine I was still a draw, but every year the wonder grew less, and, when I was thirteen, my Bar-Mitzvah (confirmation) sermon occasioned no more sensation than those of the many other lads whose sermons I had written for them. I struggled along as boyishly as I could for some time after that, but it was in a losing cause. My age won on me daily. As it is said, 'I have been young, and now I am old.' In vain I composed the most eloquent addresses to be heard in Grodno. In vain I gave a course on the emotions, with explanations and instances from daily life—the fickle public preferred younger attractions. So at last I gave it up and sold vodki."
"Vat a pity! Vat a pity!" ejaculated Yankelé, "after vinning fame in de Torah!"
"But what is a man to do? He is not always a boy," replied the Rabbi. "Yes, I kept a brandy shop. That's what I call Degradation. But there is always balm in Gilead. I lost so much money over it that I had to emigrate to England, where, finding nothing else to do, I became a preacher again." He poured himself out a glass of schnapps, ignoring the water.
"I heard nothing of de vodki shop," said Yankelé; "it vas svallowed up in your earlier fame."
The Rabbi drained the glass of schnapps, smacked his lips, and resumed his knife and fork. Manasseh reached for the unoffered bottle, and helped himself liberally. The Rabbi unostentatiously withdrew it beyond his easy reach, looking at Yankelé the while.
"How long have you been in England?" he asked the Pole.
"Not long," said Yankelé.
"Ha! Does Gabriel the cantor still suffer from neuralgia?"
Yankelé looked sad. "No—he is dead," he said.
"Dear me! Well, he was tottering when I knew him. His blowing of the ram's horn got wheezier every year. And how is his young brother, Samuel?"
"He is dead!" said Yankelé.
"What, he too! Tut, tut! He was so robust. Has Mendelssohn, the stonemason, got many more girls?"
"He is dead!" said Yankelé.
"Nonsense!" gasped the Rabbi, dropping his knife and fork. "Why, I heard from him only a few months ago."
"He is dead!" said Yankelé.
"Good gracious me! Mendelssohn dead!" After a moment of emotion he resumed his meal. "But his sons and daughters are all doing well, I hope. The eldest, Solomon, was a most pious youth, and his third girl, Neshamah, promised to be a rare beauty."
"They are dead!" said Yankelé.
This time the Rabbi turned pale as a corpse himself. He laid down his knife and fork automatically.
"D—dead," he breathed in an awestruck whisper. "All?"
"Everyone. De same cholera took all de family."
The Rabbi covered his face with his hands. "Then poor Solomon's wife is a widow. I hope he left her enough to live upon."
"No, but it doesn't matter," said Yankelé.
"It matters a great deal," cried the Rabbi.
"She is dead," said Yankelé.
"Rebecca Schwartz dead!" screamed the Rabbi, for he had once loved the maiden himself, and, not having married her, had still a tenderness for her.
"Rebecca Schwartz," repeated Yankelé inexorably.
"Was it the cholera?" faltered the Rabbi.
"No, she vas heart-broke."
Rabbi Remorse Red-herring silently pushed his plate away, and leaned his elbows upon the table and his face upon his palms, and his chin upon the bottle of schnapps in mournful meditation.
"You are not eating, Rabbi," said Yankelé insinuatingly.
"I have lost my appetite," said the Rabbi.
"Vat a pity to let food get cold and spoil! You'd better eat it."
The Rabbi shook his head querulously.
"Den I vill eat it," cried Yankelé indignantly. "Good hot food like dat!"
"As you like," said the Rabbi wearily. And Yankelé began to eat at lightning speed, pausing only to wink at the inscrutable Manasseh; and to cast yearning glances at the inaccessible schnapps that supported the Rabbi's chin.
Presently the Rabbi looked up: "You're quite sure all these people are dead?" he asked with a dawning suspicion.
"May my blood be poured out like this schnapps," protested Yankelé, dislodging the bottle, and vehemently pouring the spirit into a tumbler, "if dey be not."
The Rabbi relapsed into his moody attitude, and retained it till his wife brought in a big willow-pattern china dish of stewed prunes and pippins. She produced four plates for these, and so Yankelé finished his meal in the unquestionable status of a first-class guest. The Rabbi was by this time sufficiently recovered to toy with two platefuls in a melancholy silence which he did not break till his mouth opened involuntarily to intone the grace.
When grace was over he turned to Manasseh and said, "And what was this way you were suggesting to me of getting a profitable Sephardic connection?"
"I did, indeed, wonder why you did not extend your practice as consolation preacher among the Spanish Jews," replied Manasseh gravely. "But after what we have just heard of the death-rate of Jews in Grodno, I should seriously advise you to go back there."
"No, they cannot forget that I was once a boy," replied the Rabbi with equal gravity. "I prefer the Spanish Jews. They are all well-to-do. They may not die so often as the Russians, but they die better, so to speak. You will give me introductions, you will speak of me to your illustrious friends, I understand."
"You understand!" repeated Manasseh in dignified astonishment. "You do not understand. I shall do no such thing."
"But you yourself suggested it!" cried the Rabbi excitedly.
"I? Nothing of the kind. I had heard of you and your ministrations to mourners, and meeting you in the street this afternoon for the first time, it struck me to enquire why you did not carry your consolations into the bosom of my community where so much more money is to be made. I said I wondered you had not done so from the first. And you—invited me to dinner. I still wonder. That is all, my good man." He rose to go.
The haughty rebuke silenced the Rabbi, though his heart was hot with a vague sense of injury.
"Do you come my way, Yankelé?" said Manasseh carelessly.
The Rabbi turned hastily to his second guest.
"When do you want me to marry you?" he asked.
"You have married me," replied Yankelé.
"I?" gasped the Rabbi. It was the last straw.
"Yes," reiterated Yankelé. "Hasn't he, Mr. da Costa?"
His heart went pit-a-pat as he put the question.
"Certainly," said Manasseh without hesitation.
Yankelé's face was made glorious summer. Only two of the quartette knew the secret of his radiance.
"There, Rabbi," he cried exultantly. "Good Sabbath!"
"Good Sabbath!" added Manasseh.
"Good Sabbath," dazedly murmured the Rabbi.
"Good Sabbath," added his wife.
"Congratulate me!" cried Yankelé when they got outside.
"On what?" asked Manasseh.
"On being your future son-in-law, of course."
"Oh, on that? Certainly, I congratulate you most heartily." The two Schnorrers shook hands. "I thought you were asking for compliments on your manœuvring."
"Vy, doesn't it deserve dem?"
"No," said Manasseh magisterially.
"No?" queried Yankelé, his heart sinking again. "Vy not?"
"Why did you kill so many people?"
"Somebody must die dat I may live."
"You said that before," said Manasseh severely. "A good Schnorrer would not have slaughtered so many for his dinner. It is a waste of good material. And then you told lies!"
"How do you know they are not dead?" pleaded Yankelé.
The King shook his head reprovingly. "A first-class Schnorrer never lies," he laid it down.
"I might have made truth go as far as a lie—if you hadn't come to dinner yourself."
"What is that you say? Why, I came to encourage you by showing you how easy your task was."
"On de contrary, you made it much harder for me. Dere vas no dinner left."
"But against that you must reckon that since the Rabbi had already invited one person, he couldn't be so hard to tackle as I had fancied."
"Oh, but you must not judge from yourself," protested Yankelé. "You be not a Schnorrer—you be a miracle."
"But I should like a miracle for my son-in-law also," grumbled the King.
"And if you had to schnorr a son-in-law, you vould get a miracle," said Yankelé soothingly. "As he has to schnorr you, he gets the miracle."
"True," observed Manasseh musingly, "and I think you might therefore be very well content without the dowry."
"So I might," admitted Yankelé, "only you vould not be content to break your promise. I suppose I shall have some of de dowry on de marriage morning."
"On that morning you shall get my daughter—without fail. Surely that will be enough for one day!"
"Vell, ven do I get de money your daughter gets from de Synagogue?"
"When she gets it from the Synagogue, of course."
"How much vill it be?"
"It may be a hundred and fifty pounds," said Manasseh pompously.
Yankelé's eyes sparkled.
"And it may be less," added Manasseh as an after-thought.
"How much less?" enquired Yankelé anxiously.
"A hundred and fifty pounds," repeated Manasseh pompously.
"D'you mean to say I may get noting?"
"Certainly, if she gets nothing. What I promised you was the money she gets from the Synagogue. Should she be fortunate enough in the sorteo—"
"De sorteo! Vat is dat?"
"The dowry I told you of. It is accorded by lot. My daughter has as good a chance as any other maiden. By winning her you stand to win a hundred and fifty pounds. It is a handsome amount. There are not many fathers who would do as much for their daughters," concluded Manasseh with conscious magnanimity.
"But about de Jerusalem estate!" said Yankelé, shifting his standpoint. "I don't vant to go and live dere. De Messiah is not yet come."
"No, you will hardly be able to live on it," admitted Manasseh.
"You do not object to my selling it, den?"
"Oh, no! If you are so sordid, if you have no true Jewish sentiment!"
"Ven can I come into possession?"
"On the wedding day if you like."
"One may as vell get it over," said Yankelé, suppressing a desire to rub his hands in glee. "As de Talmud says, 'One peppercorn to-day is better dan a basketful of pumpkins to-morrow.'"
"All right! I will bring it to the Synagogue."
"Bring it to de Synagogue!" repeated Yankelé in amaze. "Oh, you mean de deed of transfer."
"The deed of transfer! Do you think I waste my substance on solicitors? No, I will bring the property itself."
"But how can you do dat?"
"Where is the difficulty?" demanded Manasseh with withering contempt. "Surely a child could carry a casket of Jerusalem earth to Synagogue!"
"A casket of earth! Is your property in Jerusalem only a casket of earth?"
"What then? You didn't expect it would be a casket of diamonds?" retorted Manasseh, with gathering wrath. "To a true Jew a casket of Jerusalem earth is worth all the diamonds in the world."
"But your Jerusalem property is a fraud!" gasped Yankelé.
"Oh, no, you may be easy on that point. It's quite genuine. I know there is a good deal of spurious Palestine earth in circulation, and that many a dead man who has clods of it thrown into his tomb is nevertheless buried in unholy soil. But this casket I was careful to obtain from a Rabbi of extreme sanctity. It was the only thing he had worth schnorring."
"I don't suppose I shall get more dan a crown for it," said Yankelé, with irrepressible indignation.
"That's what I say," returned Manasseh; "and never did I think a son-in-law of mine would meditate selling my holy soil for a paltry five shillings! I will not withdraw my promise, but I am disappointed in you—bitterly disappointed. Had I known this earth was not to cover your bones, it should have gone down to the grave with me, as enjoined in my last will and testament, by the side of which it stands in my safe."
"Very vell, I von't sell it," said Yankelé sulkily.
"You relieve my soul. As the Mishnah says, 'He who marries a wife for money begets froward children.'"
"And vat about de province in England?" asked Yankelé, in low, despondent tones. He had never believed in that, but now, behind all his despair and incredulity, was a vague hope that something might yet be saved from the crash.
"Oh, you shall choose your own," replied Manasseh graciously. "We will get a large map of London, and I will mark off in red pencil the domain in which I schnorr. You will then choose any district in this—say, two main streets and a dozen byways and alleys—which shall be marked off in blue pencil, and whatever province of my kingdom you pick, I undertake not to schnorr in, from your wedding-day onwards. I need not tell you how valuable such a province already is; under careful administration, such as you would be able to give it, the revenue from it might be doubled, trebled. I do not think your tribute to me need be more than ten per cent."
Yankelé walked along mesmerised, reduced to somnambulism by his magnificently masterful patron.
"Oh, here we are!" said Manasseh, stopping short. "Won't you come in and see the bride, and wish her joy?"
A flash of joy came into Yankelé's own face, dissipating his glooms. After all there was always da Costa's beautiful daughter—a solid, substantial satisfaction. He was glad she was not an item of the dowry.
The unconscious bride opened the door.
"Ah, ha, Yankelé!" said Manasseh, his paternal heart aglow at the sight of her loveliness. "You will be not only a king, but a rich king. As it is written, 'Who is rich? He who hath a beautiful wife.'"