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 may depend on. We will always stick together. No matter bow many other horses I may have, I shall never love any of them like you. And no matter how much money I am offered for you, I will never sell you. We belong to each other forever."

At this assurance Dapples again nodded his head sagely. It was a pact agreed to by both parties—they were to belong to each other forever.


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text: Dapples of the Circus

title: Dapples of the Circus


text: Dapples of the Circus/Introduction

title: Dapples of the Circus/Introduction


text: Dapples of the Circus/Chapter 1

title: Dapples of the Circus/Chapter 1


text: Dapples of the Circus/Chapter 2

title: Dapples of the Circus/Chapter 2


text: Dapples of the Circus/Chapter 3

title: Dapples of the Circus/Chapter 3


text: Dapples of the Circus/Chapter 4

title: Dapples of the Circus/Chapter 4


text: Dapples of the Circus/Chapter 5

title: Dapples of the Circus/Chapter 5


text: Dapples of the Circus/Chapter 6

title: Dapples of the Circus/Chapter 6


text: Dapples of the Circus/Chapter 7

title: Dapples of the Circus/Chapter 7


text: Dapples of the Circus/Chapter 8

title: Dapples of the Circus/Chapter 8


text: Dapples of the Circus/Chapter 9

title: Dapples of the Circus/Chapter 9


text: Dapples of the Circus/Chapter 10

title: Dapples of the Circus/Chapter 10


text: Dapples of the Circus/Chapter 11

title: Dapples of the Circus/Chapter 11


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Rh the season and the charming odours of the flowers around, and maddened also by the delicious breeze, the king could not keep away from his mind, the thoughts of the beautiful Girika. ''Ibique in silvis semen suum continere non potuit. Rex autem, illud frustra profundi nolens, ut excidit, in folium recepit. Agnovit etiam tempes liviam cojugis suæ horam adventam esse. Itaque rex rem multa cogitatione iterum atque iterum rovelvens, (scivit enim semen suum frustra perdi non posse et tempus jam adesse in quo conjux illius egeret), carmina super illo recitavit''. And beholding that a swift hawk was resting very near to him, the king, acquainted with the subtle truths of Dharma and Artha, went unto him and said, 'Amiable one, carry thou this seed for my wife Girika and give it unto her. Her season hath arrived.'

"And the hawk, swift of speed, took it from the king and rapidly coursed through the air. And while thus passing, the hawk was seen by another of his species. And thinking that the first one was carrying meat, the second one flew at him. And the two fought with each other in the sky with their beaks. And while they were fighting, the seed fell into the waters of the Yamuna (Jumna.) And in those waters dwelt an Apsara of the higher ranks, known by the name of Adrika, but transformed by a Brahmana's curse into a fish. And that Adrika, transformed into a fish, as soon as the seed of Vasu fell into the water from the claws of the hawk, rapidly approaching, swallowed it at once. And that fish was, sometime after, caught by the fishermen. And it was the tenth month of the fish's having swallowed the seed. And from the stomach of that fish came out a male and a female child of human form. And the fishermen wondered much, and wending unto king Uparichara (for they were his subjects) told him all. And they said, 'O king, these two of human shape have been born in the body of a fish.' And the male child amongst the two was taken by Uparichara. And this child afterwards became the virtuous and truthful monarch Matsya.

"And after the birth of the twins, the Apsara herself became freed from her curse. For she had been told before by the illustrious one (who had cursed her) that she would, while


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60 60 THE KING OF SCHNORRERS.

"Are you Mr. da Costa?" faltered the humorist.

" Yes, / am Mr. da Costa, but you won't much longer be doorkeeper, 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 apol- ogy to. Yes — and, by Heaven! you shall pay it, though he is no plutocrat, but only what he appears. Surely, be- cause 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 il 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 con- sideration 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? "


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61 THE KING OF SCIINORREKS. 61

" 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.

u Yell, i 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. Sud- denly 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


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63 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.' "


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64 64 THE KING OF SCHNORRERS.

" 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 sinner 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 mur- mured.

" 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.

" 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


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65 THE KING OF SCHNORRERS. 65

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" indig- nantly.

" You yourself ! Why, when I first befriended you, you told me you were blood-poor."

"Dat I told you as a Schnoi-rer. 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?"


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66 60 THE KING OF SCHNORRERS.

" 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."

" 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 twi- light ! ' 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? "


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67 THE KING OF SCHNORRERS. 67

" 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."

"Vynot? 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 Schnorre7-s 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


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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 veil 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 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 peripa- tetic 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 schnon'ed half-a-crown a veek) said he was tired of my coming and getting it every Friday.


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69 THE KING OF SCHNORRERS. 69

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 phi- lanthropists 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 con- gregation 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 encour- age 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 indepen- dence. ' 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 re- demption. 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


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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 direc- tion 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 handker- chief thrust through his girdle. His face was an olive oval, bordered by ragged tufts of beard and stamped with melan- choly.

"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 Sclinor- rer is far more certain of The- World-To-Come. No, de- cidedly, 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.


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People may become less pious, and you lose your Synagogue- knocking. Or more pious — and they won't want congre- gation-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 occu- pation that is regular all the year round," he said. " Every- thing 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 pro- posal for a moment. It rejoices me exceedingly to find you


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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 neg- lected and driven in their turn to write cheques in cold blood, losing all that human 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 re- ceived ' 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


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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."

" Hush ! The world could not exist without ScJuiorrers. 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 ScJinorrer 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 mag- nificent and dithyrambic. " 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 ! "


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76 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."

"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?"

"A child could sum it up," concluded Manasseh severely. Yankele was subdued to genuine respect and consternation by da Costa's marvellous memory and arithmetical genius. But he rallied immediately. "Of course, I also reckoned on a dowry mid my bride, if only a hundred pounds."

"Well, invested in Consols, that would not bring you four pounds more," replied Manasseh instantly.


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Rh "The rest vill be made up in extra free meals," Yankelé answered no less quickly. "For ven I take your daughter off your hands you vill be able to afford to invite me more often to your table dan you do now."

"Not at all," retorted Manasseh, "for now that I know how well off you are I shall no longer feel I am doing a charity."

"Oh, yes, you vill," said Yankelé insinuatingly. "You are too much a man of honour to know as a private philantropist vat I have told de marriage-broker, de fader-in-law and de fellow Schnorrer. Besides, I vould have de free meals from you as de son-in-law, not de Schnorrer."

"In that relation I should also have free meals from you," rejoined Manasseh.

"I never dared to tink you vould do me de honour. But even so I can never give you such good meals as you give me. So dere is still a balance in my favour."

"That is true," said da Costa thoughtfully. "But you have still about a guinea to make up."

Yankelé was driven into a corner at last. But he flashed


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74 "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."

"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 veil as your fader's vould have done."

"Baruch has been very unfortunate," replied Greenbaum


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Rh He took us to the municipal palace. After much impressive fumbling of keys and opening of locks, the stained and aged document was spread before us. The guide’s eyes sparkled. He danced about us and tapped the parchment with his finger:

“What I tell you, genteelmen! Is it not so? See! hand-writing Christopher Colombo!—write it himself!”

We looked indifferent—unconcerned. The doctor examined the document very deliberately, during a painful pause.—Then he said, without any show of interest:

“Ah—Ferguson—what—what did you say was the name of the party who wrote this?”

“Christopher Colombo! ze great Christopher Colombo!”

Another deliberate examination.

“Ah—did he write it himself, or—or how?”

“He write it himself!—Christopher Colombo! he’s own hand-writing, write by himself!”

Then the doctor laid the document down and said:

“Why, I have seen boys in America only fourteen years old that could write better than that.”


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292 “But zis is ze great Christo—”

“I don’t care who it is! It’s the worst writing I ever saw. Now you musn’t think you can impose on us because we are strangers. We are not fools, by a good deal. If you have got any specimens of penmanship of real merit, trot them out!—and if you haven’t, drive on!”

We drove on. The guide was considerably shaken up, but he made one more venture. He had something which he thought would overcome us. He said:

“Ah, genteelmen, you come wis me! I show you beautiful, O, magnificent bust Christopher Colombo!—splendid, grand, magnificent!”

He brought us before the beautiful bust—for it was beautiful—and sprang back and struck an attitude:

“Ah, look, genteelmen!—beautiful, grand,—bust Christopher Colombo!—beautiful bust, beautiful pedestal!”

The doctor put up his eye-glass—procured for such occasions:

“Ah—what did you say this gentleman’s name was?”

“Christopher Colombo!—ze great Christopher Colombo!”

“Christopher Colombo—the great Christopher Colombo. Well, what did he do?”

“Discover America!—discover America, Oh, ze devil!”

“Discover America. No—that statement will hardly wash. We are just from America ourselves. We heard nothing about it. Christopher Colombo—pleasant name—is—is he dead?”

“Oh, corpo di Baccho!—three hundred year!”

“What did he die of?”

“I do not know!—I can not tell.”

“Small-pox, think?”

“I do not know, genteelmen!—I do not know what he die of!”

“Measles, likely?”

“May be—may be—I do not know—I think he die of somethings.”

“Parents living?”


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Rh “Im-posseeble!”

“Ah—which is the bust and which is the pedestal?”

“Santa Maria!—zis ze bust!—zis ze pedestal!”

Ah, I see, I see—happy combination—very happy combination, indeed. Is—is this the first time this gentleman was ever on a bust?”

That joke was lost on the foreigner—guides can not master the subtleties of the American joke.

We have made it interesting for this Roman guide. Yesterday we spent three or four hours in the Vatican, again, that wonderful world of curiosities. We came very near expressing interest, sometimes—even admiration—it was very hard to keep from it. We succeeded though. Nobody else ever did, in the Vatican museums. The guide was bewildered—non-plussed. He walked his legs off, nearly, hunting up extraordinary things, and exhausted all his ingenuity on us, but


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294 it was a failure; we never showed any interest in any thing. He had reserved what he considered to be his greatest wonder till the last—a royal Egyptian mummy, the best preserved in the world, perhaps. He took us there. He felt so sure, this time, that some of his old enthusiasm came back to him:

“See, genteelmen!—Mummy! Mummy!”

The eye-glass came up as calmly, as deliberately as ever.

“Ah,—Ferguson—what did I understand you to say the gentleman’s name was?”

“Name?—he got no name!—Mummy!—’Gyptian mummy!”

“Yes, yes. Born here?”

“No! ’Gyptian mummy!”

“Ah, just so. Frenchman, I presume?”

“No!—not Frenchman, not Roman!—born in Egypta!”

“Born in Egypta. Never heard of Egypta before. Foreign locality, likely. Mummy—mummy. How calm he is—how self-possessed. Is, ah—is he dead?”

“Oh, sacre bleu, been dead three thousan’ year!”

The doctor turned on him savagely:

“Here, now, what do you mean by such conduct as this! Playing us for Chinamen because we are strangers and trying to learn! Trying to impose your vile second-hand carcasses on us!—thunder and lightning, I’ve a notion to—to—if you’ve got a nice fresh corpse, fetch him out!—or by George we’ll brain you!”

We make it exceedingly interesting for this Frenchman. However, he has paid us back, partly, without knowing it. He came to the hotel this morning to ask if we were up, and he endeavored as well as he could to describe us, so that the landlord would know which persons he meant. He finished with the casual remark that we were lunatics. The observation was so innocent and so honest that it amounted to a very good thing for a guide to say.

There is one remark (already mentioned,) which never yet has failed to disgust these guides. We use it always, when we can think of nothing else to say. After they have ex-


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Rh hausted their enthusiasm pointing out to us and praising the beauties of some ancient bronze image or broken-legged statue, we look at it stupidly and in silence for five, ten, fifteen minutes—as long as we can hold out, in fact—and then ask:

“Is—is he dead?”

That conquers the serenest of them. It is not what they are looking for—especially a new guide. Our Roman Ferguson is the most patient, unsuspecting, long-suffering subject we have had yet. We shall be sorry to part with him. We have enjoyed his society very much. We trust he has enjoyed ours, but we are harassed with doubts.

We have been in the catacombs. It was like going down into a very deep cellar, only it was a cellar which had no end to it. The narrow passages are roughly hewn in the rock, and on each hand as you pass along, the hollowed shelves are carved out, from three to fourteen deep; each held a corpse once. There are names, and Christian symbols, and prayers, or sentences expressive of Christian hopes, carved upon nearly every sarcophagus. The dates belong away back in the dawn of the Christian era, of course. Here, in these holes in the ground, the first Christians sometimes burrowed to escape persecution. They crawled out at night to get food, but remained under cover in the day time. The priest told us that St. Sebastian lived under ground for some time while he was being hunted; he went out one day, and the soldiery discovered and shot him to death with arrows. Five or six of the early Popes—those who reigned about sixteen hundred years ago—held their papal courts and advised with their clergy in the bowels of the earth. During seventeen years—from A. D. 235 to A. D. 252—the Popes did not appear above ground. Four were raised to the great office during that period. Four years apiece, or thereabouts. It is very suggestive of the unhealthiness of underground graveyards as places of residence. One Pope afterward spent his entire pontificate in the catacombs—eight years. Another was discovered in them and murdered in the episcopal chair. There was no satisfaction


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296 in being a Pope in those days. There were too many annoyances. There are one hundred and sixty catacombs under Rome, each with its maze of narrow passages crossing and re-crossing each other and each passage walled to the top with scooped graves its entire length. A careful estimate makes the length of the passages of all the catacombs combined foot up nine hundred miles, and their graves number seven millions. We did not go through all the passages of all the catacombs. We were very anxious to do it, and made the necessary arrangements, but our too limited time obliged us to give up the idea. So we only groped through the dismal labyrinth of St. Callixtus, under the Church of St. Sebastian. In the various catacombs are small chapels rudely hewn in the stones, and here the early Christians often held their religious services by dim, ghostly lights. Think of mass and a sermon away down in those tangled caverns under ground!

In the catacombs were buried St. Cecilia, St. Agnes, and several other of the most celebrated of the saints. In the catacomb of St. Callixtus, St. Bridget used to remain long hours in holy contemplation, and St. Charles Borroméo was wont to spend whole nights in prayer there. It was also the scene of a very marvelous thing.

I find that grave statement in a book published in New York in 1858, and written by “Rev. William H. Neligan, LL.D., M. A., Trinity College, Dublin; Member of the Archæological Society of Great Britain.” Therefore, I believe it. Otherwise, I could not. Under other circumstances I should have felt a curiosity to know what Philip had for dinner.

This author puts my credulity on its mettle every now and then. He tells of one St. Joseph Calasanctius whose house in Rome he visited; he visited only the house—the priest has been dead two hundred years. He says the Virgin Mary appeared to this saint. Then he continues:


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Rh "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 Yankele, 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."


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85 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


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Rh THE KING OF SCHNORKERS. 87

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.


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Rh 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


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98 "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,"


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104 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.


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106 not marry; with it he could be divorced readily. He might, indeed, die without the sanction of the Council of Five, but this was the only great act of his life which was free from its surveillance, and he could certainly not be buried save "by permission of the Mahamad." The Haham himself, the

Sage or Chief Rabbi of the congregation, could not unite his flock in holy wedlock without the "permission of the Mahamad." And this authority was not merely negative and passive, it was likewise positive and active. To be a Yahid—a recognised congregant—one had to submit one's neck to a yoke more galling even than that of the Torah, to say nothing of the payment of Finta, or poll-tax. Woe to


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Rh charity, for the quaint reason that the respect entertained for him might unduly prejudice the Council in favour of his candidate. As no gentleman of the Mahamad could possibly master the statutes in his year of office, especially as only a rare member understood the Portuguese in which they had been ultimately couched, the Secretary was invariably referred to, for he was permanent, full of saws and precedents, and so he interpreted the law with impartial inaccuracy—by permission of the Mahamad." In his heart of hearts he believed that the sun rose and the rain fell—"by permission of the Mahamad."

The Council Chamber was of goodly proportions, and was decorated by gold lettered panels,inscribed with the names of pious donors, thick as saints in a graveyard, overflowing even into the lobby. 'The flower and chivalry of the Spanish Jewry had sat round that Council-table, grandees who had plumed and ruffled it with the bloods of their day, clanking their swords with the best, punctilious


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Rh "Mr. da Costa," said the beadle, now arrived too near the imposing figure to venture on familiarities with it. This time the beggar gave indications of restored hearing. "Yes, my man," he said, turning and advancing a few paces to meet the envoy. "Don't go, Grobstock," he called over his shoulder.

"Didn't you hear me calling?" grumbled the beadle.

"I heard you calling da Costa, but I naturally imagined it was one of your drinking companions," replied Manasseh severely.

"The Mahamad is waiting for you," faltered the beadle.

"Tell the gentlemen of the Mahamad," said Manasseh, with reproving emphasis, "that I shall do myself the pleasure of being with them presently.

Nay, pray don't hurry away, my dear Grobstock," he went on, resuming his place at the German magnate's side—"and so your wife is taking the waters at Tunbridge Wells. In faith, 'tis an excellent regimen for the vapours. I am think-


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112 112 THE KING OF SCHNORRERS.

ing of sending my wife to Buxton — the warden of our hos- pital has his country-seat there."

"But you are wanted," murmured Grobstock, who was anxious to escape. He had caught the Sc/morrer's eye as its owner sunned himself in the archway, and it held him.

" Tis only a meeting of the Mahamad I have to attend," he said indifferently. " Rather a nuisance — but duty is duty."

Grobstock's red face became a setting for two expanded eyes.

" I thought the Mahamad was your chief Council," he exclaimed.

" Yes, there are only five of us," said Manasseh lightly, and, while Grobstock gaped incredulous, the Chancellor himself shambled up in pale consternation.

" You are keeping the gentlemen of the Mahamad wait- ing," he panted imperiously.

"Ah, you are right, Grobstock," said Manasseh with a sigh of resignation. " They cannot get on without me. Well, you will excuse me, I know. I am glad to have seen you again — we shall finish our chat at your house some evening, shall we? I have agreeable recollections of your hospitality."

" My wife will be away all this month," Grobstock re- peated feebly.

"Ha! ha! ha !" laughed Manasseh roguishly. "Thank you for the reminder. I shall not fail to aid you in taking advantage of her absence. Perhaps mine will be away, too — at Buxton. Two bachelors, ha ! ha ! ha ! " and, proffer- ing his hand, he shook Grobstock's in gracious farewell. Then he sauntered leisurely in the wake of the feverishly impatient Chancellor, his staff tapping the stones in meas- ured tardiness.


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Rh "Good afternoon, gentlemen," he observed affably as he entered the Council Chamber.

"You have kept us waiting," sharply rejoined the President of the Mahamad, ruffled out of his regal suavity. He was a puffy, swarthy personage, elegantly attired, and he leaned forward on his velvet throne, tattooing on the table with bediamonded fingers.

"Not so long as you have kept me waiting," said Manasseh with quiet resentment. "If I had known you expected me to cool my heels in the corridor I should not have come, and, had not my friend the Treasurer of the Great Synagogue opportunely turned up to chat with me, I should not have stayed."

"You are impertinent, sir," growled the President.

"I think, sir, it is you who owe me an apology," maintained Manasseh unflinchingly, "and, knowing the courtesy and high breeding which has always distinguished your noble family, I can only explain your present tone by your being


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Rh ancestor of a Duchess of to-day. "He wanted to marry a beautiful German Jewess."

"And was interdicted," said the President.

"Hem!" coughed the Chancellor. "He—he was only permitted to marry her under humiliating conditions. The Elders forbade the attendance of the members of the House of Judgment, or of the Cantors; no celebration was to take place  in the Snoga; no offerings were to be made for the bridegroom's health, nor was he even to receive the bridegroom's call to the reading of the Law."

"But the Elders will not impose any such conditions on my son-in-law," said Manasseh, skirting round another chair so as to bring his forefinger to play upon the Chief of the Elders, on whose left he had now arrived in his argumentative advances.

'In the first place he is not one of us. His desire to join us is a compliment. If anyone has offended your traditions, it is my daughter. But then she is not a male, like the Treasurer cited; she is not an active agent, she has not gone out of her way to choose a Tedesco—she has been chosen. Your masculine precedents cannot touch her."

"Ay, but we can touch you," said the contemporary


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Rh your sloth." His tall form dominated the chamber, his head seemed to touch the ceiling. The Councillors sat dazed as amid a lightning-storm.

'"Jackanapes! Blasphemer! Shameless renegade!" cried the President, choking with wrath. And being already on his legs, he dashed to the bell and tugged at it madly, blanching the Chancellor's face with the perception of a lost opportunity.

"I shall not leave this chamber till I choose," said Manasseh, dropping stolidly into the nearest chair and folding his arms.

At once a cry of horror and consternation rose from every throat, every man leapt threateningly to his feet, and Manasseh realised that he was throned on the alcoved armchair!

But he neither blenched nor budged.

"Nay, keep your seats, gentlemen," he said quietly.

The President, turning at the stir, caught sight of the Schnorrer, staggered and clutched at the mantel. The Councillors stood spellbound for an instant, while the Chancellor's eyes roved wildly round the walls, as if expecting the gold names to start from their panels. The beadle rushed in, terrified by the strenuous tintinnabulation, looked instinctively towards the throne for orders, then underwent petrifaction on the threshold, and stared speechless at Manasseh, what time the President, gasping like a landed


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Rh in the strange traditional recitative. The wave of curiosity mounted again, higher than before.

"Who vows—"

The wave hung an instant, poised and motionless.

"Cinco livras!"

The wave broke in a low murmur, amid which the Master

imperturbably proceeded, "For oil—for the life of his daughter Deborah, &c." When he reached the end there was a poignant silence.

Was it to be da capo again?

"May He who blessed our fathers!"

The wave of curiosity surged once more, rising and subsiding with this ebb and flow of financial Benediction.

" Who vows—cinco livras—tor the wax candles."


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Rh The beadle descended the steps, and after a moment of inaudible discussion with da Costa, the Master Reader lifted up his voice afresh.

The Chief of the Elders frowned and clenched his praying-shawl angrily. It was a fifth Benediction! But the Reader's sing-song went on, for Manasseh's wrath was nearer than the magnate's.

"Who vows—cinco livras for the Captives— for the life of the Chief of the Elders!"

The Chief bit his lip furiously at this delicate revenge; galled almost to frenzy by the aggravating foreboding that the congregation would construe his message as a solicitation of the polite attention. For it was of the amenities of the Synagogue for


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Rh all the contributions the first time, though Manasseh had commanded each new Benediction as if by an after-thought), was allowed to summon the Levite who succeeded Manasseh, the Synagogue had been enriched by a hundred pounds. The last Benediction had been coupled with the name of the poorest Schnorrer present—an assertion and glorification of Manasseh's own order that put the coping-stone on this sensational memorial of the Royal Wedding. It was, indeed, a kingly munificence, a sovereign graciousness. Nay, before the Service was over, Manasseh even begged the Chief of the Elders to permit a special Rogaton to be said for a sick person. The Chief, meanly snatching at this opportunity of reprisals, refused, till, learning that Manasseh alluded to the ailing President of the Mahamad, he collapsed ingloriously.

But the real hero of the day was Yankelé, who shone chiefly by reflected light, but yet shone even more brilliantly than the Spaniard, for to him was added the double lustre of the bridegroom and the stranger, and he was the cause and centre of the sensation.


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Rh "A bad debt!" An angry light leapt into the President's eyes. There had been an ancient practice of lending out the funds to members, and the President had always set his face against the survival of the policy. 'It would not lave been made had I been there!" he cried.

"No, indeed," admitted Manasseh. "You would have stopped it in its early stages. The Chief of the Elders tried, but failed."

"The dolt!' cried the President. "A man without a backbone. How much is it?"


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144 forgetting even his hair in the mysterious menace of that terrifying sibilation.

"What do you mean?" he cried.

"I mean," said Manasseh, reappearing at the door, "that since the world was created, only two men have taken their clothes with them to the world to come. One was Korah, who was swallowed down, the other was Elijah, who

was borne aloft. It is patent in which direction the third will go."

The sleeping chord of superstition vibrated under Manasseh's dexterous touch.

"Rejoice, O young man, in your strength," went on the Beggar, "but a day will come when only the corpse-watchers will perform your toilette. In plain white they will dress you, and the devil shall never know what a dandy you were."

"But who are you, that I should give you money for the


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Rh So the carriage and pair were brought out, and Manasseh, pressing into his service the coachman, the valet, and the footman, superintended the packing of the bulk of Beau Belasco's wardrobe into the two vehicles. Then he took his seat in the carriage, the coachman and the gorgeous powdered footman got into their places, and with a joyous fanfaronade on the horn, the procession set off, Manasseh bowing graciously to the master of "The Red House," who was waving his beruffled hand from a window embowered in greenery. After a pleasant drive, the vehicles halted at the house, guarded by stone lions, in which dwelt Nathaniel Furtado, the wealthy private dealer, who willingly gave fifteen pounds for the buck's belaced and embroidered vestments, besides being inveigled into a donation of a guinea towards the Synagogue's bad debt. Manasseh thereupon dismissed the chaise with a handsome gratuity, and drove in state in the now-empty carriage, attended by the powdered footman, to Finsbury Circus, to the mansion of Rodriques. "I have come for my ten pounds," he said, and reminded him of his promise (?). Rodriques laughed, and swore, and laughed


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Rh relative to discharge his obligations. I put it strictly on a personal footing. But now I am pleading on behalf of the Synagogue, which stands to lose heavily. You are a Sephardi as well as my cousin. It is a distinction not unlike the one I have so often to explain to you. You owe me charity, not only as a cousin, but as a Schnorrer likewise."

And, having wrested another guinea from the obfuscated merchant, he repaired to Grobstock's business office in search of the defaulter.

But the wily Grobstock, forewarned by Manasseh's promise to visit him, and further frightened by his Sunday morning call, had denied himself to the Schnorrer or anyone remotely resembling him, and it was not till the afternoon that Manasseh ran him to earth at Sampson's coffeehouse in Exchange Alley, where the brokers foregathered,


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Rh Shall He be less well served than an earthly monarch? Do you think I do not know your financial relations with the Court? The service of the Almighty demands the best men. I was the best man to collect the money—you are the best to invest it. To-morrow morning it shall be in your hands."

"No, don't trouble," said Grobstock feebly. "I don't need the actual money to deal with."

"I thank you for your trust in me," replied Manasseh with emotion. "Now you speak like yourself again. I withdraw what I said to you. I will come to you again — to the philanthropist no less than financier. And — and I am sorry I paid for my coffee." His voice quivered.

Grobstock was touched. He took out a sixpence and repaid his guest with interest. Manasseh slipped the coin into his pocket, and shortly afterwards, with some final admonitions to his stock-jobber, took his leave.

Being in for the job, Grobstock resolved to make the best of it. His latent vanity impelled him to astonish the Beggar. It happened that he was on the point of a magnificent manœuvre, and alongside his own triton Manasseh's minnow might just as well swim. He made the sixty odd pounds into six hundred.


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ROM the sanguinary sports of the Holy Inquisition; the slaughter of the Coliseum; and the dismal tombs of the Catacombs, I naturally pass to the picturesque horrors of the Capuchin Convent. We stopped a moment in a small chapel in the church to admire a picture of St. Michael vanquishing Satan—a picture which is so beautiful that I can not but think it belongs to the reviled “Renaissance,” notwithstanding I believe they told us one of the ancient old masters painted it—and then we descended into the vast vault underneath.

Here was a spectacle for sensitive nerves! Evidently the old masters had been at work in this place. There were six divisions in the apartment, and each division was ornamented with a style of decoration peculiar to itself—and these decorations were in every instance formed of human bones! There were shapely arches, built wholly of thigh bones; there were startling pyramids, built wholly of grinning skulls; there were quaint architectural structures of various kinds, built of shin bones and the bones of the arm; on the wall were elaborate frescoes, whose curving vines were made of knotted human vertebræ; whose delicate tendrils were made of sinews and tendons; whose flowers were formed of knee-caps and toe-nails. Every lasting portion of the human frame was represented in these intricate designs (they were by Michael Angelo, I think,) and there was a careful finish about the work, and an attention to details that betrayed the artist’s love of his labors as well as his schooled ability. I asked the good-natured monk who accompanied us, who did this? And he said, “We did it”—meaning himself and his brethren up stairs. I could see that


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Rh the old friar took a high pride in his curious show. We made him talkative by exhibiting an interest we never betrayed to guides.

“Who were these people?”

“We—up stairs—Monks of the Capuchin order—my brethren.”

“How many departed monks were required to upholster these six parlors?”

“These are the bones of four thousand.”

“It took a long time to get enough?”

“Many, many centuries.”


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defensively. u He had a misfortune in the winter, and he has never got straight yet. A child of his died, and, un- happily, 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 Yankel£, stung to noble emulation, " have made two sov'rans in von minute out of Gideon de bullion-broker. He likes to give ScJmorrers sov'rans, as if in mistake for shillings, to see vat dey'll do. De fools


text: One of a Thousand/Butler, William Samford


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back, without perceptible pause, " You do not allow for vat I save by my piety. I fast twenty times a year, and surely dat is at least anoder guinea per annum."

" But you will have children," retorted da Costa.

Yankele shrugged his shoulders.

" Dat is de affair of de Holy One, blessed be He. Ven He sends dem He vill provide for dem. You must not forget, too, dat mid your daughter de dowry vould be noting so small as a hundred pounds."

" My daughter will have a dowry befitting her station, cer- tainly," said Manasseh, with his grandest manner ; " but then I had looked forward to her marrying a king of Schnorrers."

" Veil, but ven I marry her I shall be."

"How so?"

" I shall have schnorred your daughter — the most pre- cious thing in the world ! And schnorred her from a king of Schnorrers, too ! ! And I shall have schnorred your services as marriage-broker into de bargain ! ! ! "

CHAPTER IV.

SHOWING HOW THE ROYAL WEDDING WAS ARRANGED.

Manasseh Bueno Barzillai Azevedo da Costa was so im- pressed 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.


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"Me ! ven?" exclaimed Yanked indignantly.

" Why, this very night. When you asked young Wein- stein 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, Yankele, 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 throw- ing her bound to a lion.' "

" But you have also seen me schnorr mid success," re- monstrated the suitor.

" Never !" protested Manasseh vehemently.

" Often ! "

" From whom ? " From you ! " said Yankele" boldly.

From me! " sneered Manasseh, accentuating the pro- noun with infinite contempt. " What does that prove ? I am a generous man. The test is to schnorr from a miser."

"I viil schnorr from a miser ! " announced Yankele des- perately.

" You will ! "

"Yes. Choose your miser."

" No, I leave it to you," said da Costa politely.

"Veil, Sam Lazarus, de butcher shop ! "

" No, not Sam Lazarus, he once gave a Schnorrer I know elevenpence."

" Elevenpence? " incredulously murmured Yankele.

" 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


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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 Yankele, " 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."

" Veil, 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? " I vill go to Mendel Jacobs, of Mary Axe."

" Mendel Jacobs — oh, no ! Why, he's married ! A mar- ried 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."

Yankele selected several other names, but Manasseh


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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 Yankele disingenuously, while his heart began to palpitate with alarm.

" Yes, isn't there — Rabbi Bloater ! "

Yankele" shook his head. Ruin stared him in the face — his fondest hopes were crumbling.

"I know its some fishy name — Rabbi Haddock — no it isn't. It's Rabbi Remorse something."

Yankele 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."

Yankele 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 Yankele.

" 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 Yankele, by way of diversion.

" Oh, unique — quite unique. First of all there would be all the money she gets from the Synagogue. Our Synagogue


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gives considerable dowries to portionless girls. There are large bequests for the purpose."

Yankele'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 Yankele.

"First class, with an unquestionable title. And, of course, I would give you some province or other in this country."

" What ! " gasped Yankele.

"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 Yankele, and crawled home heavy-hearted to Dinah's Buildings, Tripe Yard, White- chapel, 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 con- solations 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 roles. As a mourning preacher he gave every satisfaction : he was regu- lar 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 de- pending upon the circumstances. If, as not infrequently happened, the person deceased was a stranger to him, he


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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 sen- tence 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 ex- plained 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 fright- fully dear ! I can easily get three for twopence.' But she wouldn't part with them at that price, so I went on, think- ing 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


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of the virtues he inculcated. He lived generously — through other people's generosity — but no one could boast of hav- ing 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 defalcat- ing 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 Yankele ; his meals were so profuse that his savings from this source were quite a little revenue. As Yankele 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 Yankele, 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


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"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 Yankele obligingly.

" Oh, but the Rabbi sits long at table."

" I don't mind," said Yankele with undiminished placidity, " de longer de better."

The poor woman looked perplexed. " I'll tell my hus- band," she said at last.

Yankele 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 Yankele with an inspiration of veracity.

" But my husband doesn't marry people."

"Vy not?"

" He only brings consolation into households," she ex- plained ingenuously.

"Veil, I won't get married midout him," Yankele mur- mured lugubriously.

The little woman went back in bewilderment to her bosom's lord. Forthwith out came Rabbi Remorse Red-her ring, 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 Yankele, " 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?"


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Yankele 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 Yankele with a twinkle. " Your life is precious — if you die, who vill console de com- munity? "

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 vis- itor."

" No matter," said Yankele, " 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 Yankele.

" 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 Yankele with contempt. " Vere vould be de good of going to him ? "

"But why not?"

" Every Scluwrrer goes to him," said Yankele frankly.

" Hum ! " mused the Rabbi. " Perhaps there is an open- ing 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.


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Yankele 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, Yankele, good Sabbath ! " said da Costa affably.

" G-g-ood Sabbath ! " stammered Yankele.

" 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?" Yankele" could not help saying.

" I didn't. I only had the pleasure of making his ac- quaintance 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."

Yankele" gasped ; despite his secret amusement at Manas- seh's airs, there were moments when the easy magnificence of the man overwhelmed him, extorted his reluctant admi- ration. 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," re-


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marked 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 majes- tically ; " I sleep."

The Rabbi dared not make further protest : he turned to Yankele" and asked, " Well, now, what's this about your marriage? "

" I can't tell you before Mr. da Costa," replied Yankele, 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."

" W T hat shall we do, then? " murmured the Rabbi.

" I can vait till after dinner," said Yankele, with good- natured carelessness, "/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, pro- duced the black bottle of schnapps. It was her husband's business to get rid of Yankele - ; 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. Yankele was left stand- ing. The odour of the meat and potatoes impregnated the atmosphere with wistful poetry.

Suddenly the Rabbi looked up and perceived Yankele "Will you do as we do?" he said in seductive accents.


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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 amia- bility.

"Then go home and have you?' dinner," said the Rabbi.

Yankee'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 Yanked, 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 dis- courtesy than from life-long habit — then divided the re- mainder in unequal portions between Manasseh and the little woman, in rough correspondence with their sizes. Finally, he handed Yankele the empty dish.

"You see there is nothing left," he said simply. "We didn't even expect one visitor."


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" First come, first served," observed Manasseh, with his sphinx-like expression, as he fell-to.

Yankele 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 Yan- kele.

"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 Yankele enthusiastically, "den you must be de famous preacher everybody speaks of. I do not remem- ber 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 Yankele'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 audi- ences 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


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what I call Degradation. But there is always balm in Gilead. I lost so much money over it that I had to emi- grate to England, where, finding nothing else to do, I be- came a preacher again." He poured himself out a glass of schnapps, ignoring the water.

" I heard nothing of de vodki shop," said Yankele" ; " 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 Yankele" the while.

" How long have you been in England?" he asked the Pole.

" Not long," said Yankele

" Ha ! Does Gabriel the cantor still suffer from neuralgia ? "

Yankele" 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 Yankele

" What, he too ! Tut, tut ! He was so robust. Has Mendelssohn, the stonemason, got many more girls? ,;

" He is dead ! " said Yankele

" Nonsense ! " gasped the Rabbi, dropping his knife and fork. "Why, I heard from him only a few months ago."

" He is dead ! " said Yankele

" 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, Solo- mon, was a most pious youth, and his third girl, Neshamah, promised to be a rare beauty."

" They are dead ! " said Yankele


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Rh 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 heartbroke."

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!"


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replied Manasseh gravely. " But after what we have just heard of the death-rate of Jews in Grodno, I should seri- ously 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 as- tonishment. " You do not understand. I shall do no such thing." i

" But you yourself suggested it ! " cried the Rabbi ex- citedly.

"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, Yankele?" said Manasseh care- lessly.

The Rabbi turned hastily to his second guest.

"When do you want me to marry you?" he asked.

"You have married me," replied Yankele.

" I? " gasped the Rabbi. It was the last straw.

" Yes," reiterated Yankele. " Hasn't he, Mr. da Costa ? "

His heart went pit-a-pat as he put the question.

" Certainly," said Manasseh without hesitation.


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100 100 THE KING OF SCHNORRERS.

Yankele'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 Yankele when they got out- side.

"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 manoeuvring."

" Vy, doesn't it deserve dem?"

" No," said Manasseh magisterially.

"No?" queried Yankele, 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 Yan- ked.

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."


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" 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 Yankele " 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 Yankele 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 Yankele, " 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 ! "

" Veil, 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.

Yankele's eyes sparkled.

" And it may be less," added Manasseh as an after-thought.

"How much less?" enquired Yankele anxiously.

" A hundred and fifty pounds," repeated Manasseh pom- pously.

" 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 — "

"Desorteo/ Vatisdat?"


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" 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 Yankele, 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 veil get it over," said Yankele, suppressing a desire to rub his hands in glee. " As de Talmud says, ' One peppercorn to-day is better dan a basketful of pump- kins to-morrow.' "

" All right ! I will bring it to the Synagogue."

" Bring it to de Synagogue ! " repeated Yankele" in amaze. " Oh, you mean de deed of transfer."

" The deed of transfer ! Do you think I waste my sub- stance 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.


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" 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 Yankele.

"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 sch nor ring. ' '

" I don't suppose I shall get more dan a crown for it," said Yankele, 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 disap- pointed. 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 veil, I von't sell it," said Yankele 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 Yankele^ 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


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The unconscious bride opened the door.

" Ah, ha, Yankele ! " 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.' "

CHAPTER V.

SHOWING HOW THE KING DISSOLVED THE MAHAMAD.

Manasseh da Costa (thus docked of his nominal pleni- tude in the solemn writ) had been summoned before the Mahamad, the intended union of his daughter with a Polish Jew having excited the liveliest horror and displeasure in the breasts of the Elders of the Synagogue. Such a Jew did not pronounce Hebrew as they did !

The Mahamad was a Council of Five, no less dread than the more notorious Council of Ten. Like the Venetian Tribunal, which has unjustly monopolised the attention of history, it was of annual election, and it was elected by a larger body of Elders, just as the Council of Ten was chosen by the aristocracy. " The gentlemen of the Mahamad," as they were styled, administered the affairs of the Spanish- Portuguese community, and their oligarchy would undoubt- edly be a byword for all that is arbitrary and inquisitorial but for the widespread ignorance of its existence. To itself the Mahamad was the centre of creation. On one occasion it refused to bow even to the authority of the Lord Mayor of London. A Sephardic Jew lived and moved and had his being " by permission of the Mahamad." Without its con- sent he could have no legitimate place in the scheme of things. Minus " the permission of the Mahamad " he could


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him who refused to be Warden of the Captives — he who ransomed the chained hostages of the Moorish Corsairs, or the war prisoners held in durance by the Turks — or to be President of the Congregation, or Parnass of the Holy Land, or Bridegroom of the Law, or any of the numerous dignitaries of a complex constitution. Fines, frequent and heavy — for the benefit of the poor-box — awaited him " by permission of the Mahamad." Unhappy the wight who misconducted himself in Synagogue " by offending the presi- dent, or grossly insulting any other person," as the ordi- nance deliciously ran. Penalties, stringent and harrying, visited these and other offences — deprivation of the " good deeds," of swathing the Holy Scroll, or opening the Ark ; ignominious relegation to seats behind the reading-desk, withdrawal of the franchise, prohibition against shaving for a term of weeks ! And if, accepting office, the Yahid failed in the punctual and regular discharge of his duties, he was mulcted and chastised none the less. A fine of fortv pounds drove from the Synagogue Isaac Disraeli, collector of Curiosities of Literature, and made possible that curiosity of politics, the career of Lord Beaconsfield. The fathers of the Synagogue, who drew up their constitution in pure Castilian in the days when Pepys noted the indecorum in their little Synagogue in King Street, meant their statutes to cement, not thus to disintegrate, the community. 'Twas a tactless tyranny, this of the Mahamad, an inelastic adminis- tration of a cast-iron codex wrought " in good King Charles's golden days," when the colony of Dutch-Spanish exiles was as a camp in enemies' country, in need of military regime ; and it co-operated with the attractions of an unhampered " Christian " career in driving many a brilliant family beyond the gates of the Ghetto, and into the pages of Debrett. Athens is always a dangerous rival to Sparta.