Chapter VI (1)

SHOWING HOW THE KING ENRICHED THE SYNAGOGUE.

The Synagogue of the Gates of Heaven was crowded--members, orphan boys, _Schnorrers_, all were met in celebration of the Sabbath. But the President of the Mahamad was missing. He was still inconvenienced by the effects of his stroke, and deemed it most prudent to pray at home. The Council of Five had not met since Manasseh had dissolved it, and so the matter of his daughter's marriage was left hanging, as indeed was not seldom the posture of matters discussed by Sephardic bodies. The authorities thus passive, Manasseh found scant difficulty in imposing his will upon the minor officers, less ready than himself with constitutional precedent. His daughter was to be married under the Sephardic canopy, and no jot of synagogual honour was to be bated the bridegroom. On this Sabbath--the last before the wedding--Yankelé was to be called to the Reading of the Law like a true-born Portuguese. He made his first appearance in the Synagogue of his bride's fathers with a feeling of solemn respect, not exactly due to Manasseh's grandiose references to the ancient temple. He had walked the courtyard with levity, half prepared, from previous experience of his intended father-in-law, to find the glories insubstantial. Their unexpected actuality awed him, and he was glad he was dressed in his best. His beaver hat, green trousers, and brown coat equalled him with the massive pillars, the gleaming candelabra, and the stately roof. Da Costa, for his part, had made no change in his attire; he dignified his shabby vestments, stuffing them with royal manhood, and wearing his snuff-coloured over-garment like a purple robe. There was, in sooth, an official air about his habiliment, and to the worshippers it was as impressively familiar as the black stole and white bands of the Cantor. It seemed only natural that he should be called to the Reading first, quite apart from the fact that he was a _Cohen_, of the family of Aaron, the High Priest, a descent that, perhaps, lent something to the loftiness of his carriage.

When the Minister intoned vigorously, "The good name, Manasseh, the son of Judah, the Priest, the man, shall arise to read in the Law," every eye was turned with a new interest on the prospective father-in-law. Manasseh arose composedly, and, hitching his sliding prayer-shawl over his left shoulder, stalked to the reading platform, where he chanted the blessings with imposing flourishes, and stood at the Minister's right hand while his section of the Law was read from the sacred scroll. There was many a man of figure in the congregation, but none who became the platform better. It was beautiful to see him pay his respects to the scroll; it reminded one of the meeting of two sovereigns. The great moment, however, was when, the section being concluded, the Master Reader announced Manasseh's donations to the Synagogue. The financial statement was incorporated in a long Benediction, like a coin wrapped up in folds of paper. This was always a great moment, even when inconsiderable personalities were concerned, each man's generosity being the subject of speculation before and comment after. Manasseh, it was felt, would, although a mere _Schnorrer_, rise to the height of the occasion, and offer as much as seven and sixpence. The shrewder sort suspected he would split it up into two or three separate offerings, to give an air of inexhaustible largess.

The shrewder sort were right and wrong, as is their habit.

The Master Reader began his quaint formula, "May He who blessed our Fathers," pausing at the point where the Hebrew is blank for the amount. He span out the prefatory "Who vows"--the last note prolonging itself, like the vibration of a tuning-fork, at a literal pitch of suspense. It was a sensational halt, due to his forgetting the amounts or demanding corroboration at the eleventh hour, and the stingy often recklessly amended their contributions, panic-struck under the pressure of imminent publicity.

"Who vows--" The congregation hung upon his lips. With his usual gesture of interrogation, he inclined his ear towards Manasseh's mouth, his face wearing an unusual look of perplexity; and those nearest the platform were aware of a little colloquy between the _Schnorrer_ and the Master Reader, the latter bewildered and agitated, the former stately. The delay had discomposed the Master as much as it had whetted the curiosity of the congregation. He repeated:

"Who vows--_cinco livras_"--he went on glibly without a pause--"for charity--for the life of Yankov ben Yitzchok, his son-in-law, &c., &c." But few of the worshippers heard any more than the _cinco livras_ (five pounds). A thrill ran through the building. Men pricked up their ears, incredulous, whispering one another. One man deliberately moved from his place towards the box in which sat the Chief of the Elders, the presiding dignitary in the absence of the President of the Mahamad.

"I didn't catch--how much was that?" he asked.

"Five pounds," said the Chief of the Elders shortly. He suspected an irreverent irony in the Beggar's contribution.

The Benediction came to an end, but ere the hearers had time to realise the fact, the Master Reader had started on another. "May He who blessed our fathers!" he began, 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_--for the wax candles."

This time the thrill, the whisper, the flutter, swelled into a positive buzz. The gaze of the entire congregation was focussed upon the Beggar, who stood impassive in the blaze of glory. Even the orphan boys, packed in their pew, paused in their inattention to the Service, and craned their necks towards the platform. The veriest magnates did not thus play piety with five pound points. In the ladies' gallery the excitement was intense. The occupants gazed eagerly through the grille. One woman--a buxom dame of forty summers, richly clad and jewelled--had risen, and was tiptoeing frantically over the woodwork, her feather waving like a signal of distress. It was Manasseh's wife. The waste of money maddened her, each donation hit her like a poisoned arrow; in vain she strove to catch her spouse's eye. The air seemed full of gowns and toques and farthingales flaming away under her very nose, without her being able to move hand or foot in rescue; whole wardrobes perished at each Benediction. It was with the utmost difficulty she restrained herself from shouting down to her prodigal lord. At her side the radiant Deborah vainly tried to pacify her by assurances that Manasseh never intended to pay up.

"Who vows--" The Benediction had begun for a fourth time.

"_Cinco livras_ for the Holy Land." And the sensation grew. "For the life of this holy congregation, &c."

The Master Reader's voice droned on impassively, interminably.

The fourth Benediction was drawing to its close, when the beadle was seen to mount the platform and whisper in his ear. Only Manasseh overheard the message.

"The Chief of the Elders says you must stop. This is mere mockery. The man is a _Schnorrer_, an impudent beggar."

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 rich people to present these Benedictions to one another. And so the endless stream of donatives flowed on, provoking the hearers to fever pitch. The very orphan boys forgot that this prolongation of the service was retarding their breakfasts indefinitely. Every warden, dignitary and official, from the President of the Mahamad down to the very Keeper of the Bath, was honoured by name in a special Benediction, the chief of Manasseh's weekly patrons were repaid almost in kind on this unique and festive occasion. Most of the congregation kept count of the sum total, which was mounting, mounting....

Suddenly there was a confusion in the ladies' gallery, cries, a babble of tongues. The beadle hastened upstairs to impose his authority. The rumour circulated that Mrs. da Costa had fainted and been carried out. It reached Manasseh's ears, but he did not move. He stood at his post, unfaltering, donating, blessing.

"Who vows--_cinco livras_--for the life of his wife, Sarah!" And a faint sardonic smile flitted across the Beggar's face.

The oldest worshipper wondered if the record would be broken. Manasseh's benefactions were approaching thrillingly near the highest total hitherto reached by any one man upon any one occasion. Every brain was troubled by surmises. The Chief of the Elders, fuming impotently, was not alone in apprehending a blasphemous mockery; but the bulk imagined that the _Schnorrer_ had come into property or had always been a man of substance, and was now taking this means of restoring to the Synagogue the funds he had drawn from it. And the fountain of Benevolence played on.

The record figure was reached and left in the rear. When at length the poor Master Reader, sick unto death of the oft-repeated formula (which might just as well have covered 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 _Rogation_ 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.

His eyes twinkled continuously throughout.

The next day, Manasseh fared forth to collect the hundred pounds!

The day being Sunday, he looked to find most of his clients at home. He took Grobstock first as being nearest, but the worthy speculator and East India Director espied him from an upper window, and escaped by a back-door into Goodman's Fields--a prudent measure, seeing that the incredulous Manasseh ransacked the house in quest of him. Manasseh's manner was always a search-warrant.

The King consoled himself by paying his next visit to a personage who could not possibly evade him--none other than the sick President of the Mahamad. He lived in Devonshire Square, in solitary splendour. Him Manasseh bearded in his library, where the convalescent was sorting his collection of prints. The visitor had had himself announced as a gentleman on synagogual matters, and the public-spirited President had not refused himself to the business. But when he caught sight of Manasseh, his puffy features were distorted, he breathed painfully, and put his hand to his hip.

"You!" he gasped.

"Have a care, my dear sir! Have a care!" said Manasseh anxiously, as he seated himself. "You are still weak. To come to the point--for I would not care to distract too much a man indispensable to the community, who has already felt the hand of the Almighty for his treatment of the poor--"

He saw that his words were having effect, for these prosperous pillars of the Synagogue were mightily superstitious under affliction, and he proceeded in gentler tones. "To come to the point, it is my duty to inform you (for I am the only man who is certain of it) that while you have been away our Synagogue has made a bad debt!"

"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 have 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?"

"A hundred pounds!"

"A hundred pounds!" echoed the President, seriously concerned at this blot upon his year of office. "And who is the debtor?"

"I am."

"You! You have borrowed a hundred pounds, you--you jackanapes!"

"Silence, sir! How dare you? I should leave this apartment at once, were it not that I cannot go without your apology. Never in my life have I borrowed a hundred pounds--nay, never have I borrowed one farthing. I am no borrower. If you are a gentleman, you will apologise!"

"I am sorry if I misunderstood," murmured the poor President, "but how, then, do you owe the money?"

"How, then?" repeated Manasseh impatiently. "Cannot you understand that I have donated it to the Synagogue?"

The President stared at him open-mouthed.

"I vowed it yesterday in celebration of my daughter's marriage."

The President let a sigh of relief pass through his open mouth. He was even amused a little.

"Oh, is that all? It was like your deuced effrontery; but still, the Synagogue doesn't lose anything. There's no harm done."

"What is that you say?" enquired Manasseh sternly. "Do you mean to say I am not to pay this money?"

"How can you?"

"How can I? I come to you and others like you to pay it for me."

"Nonsense! Nonsense!" said the President, beginning to lose his temper again. "We'll let it pass. There's no harm done."

"And this is the President of the Mahamad!" soliloquised the _Schnorrer_ in bitter astonishment. "This is the chief of our ancient, godly Council! What, sir! Do you hold words spoken solemnly in Synagogue of no account? Would you have me break my solemn vow? Do you wish to bring the Synagogue institutions into contempt? Do you--a man already once stricken by Heaven--invite its chastisement again?"

The President had grown pale--his brain was reeling.

"Nay, ask its forgiveness, sir," went on the King implacably; "and make good this debt of mine in token of your remorse, as it is written, 'And repentance, and prayer, and _charity_ avert the evil decree.'"

"Not a penny!" cried the President, with a last gleam of lucidity, and strode furiously towards the bell-pull. Then he stood still in sudden recollection of a similar scene in the Council Chamber.

"You need not trouble to ring for a stroke," said Manasseh grimly. "Then the Synagogue is to be profaned, then even the Benediction which I in all loyalty and forgiveness caused to be said for the recovery of the President of the Mahamad is to be null, a mockery in the sight of the Holy One, blessed be He!"

The President tottered into his reading-chair.

"How much did you vow on my behalf?"

"Five pounds."

The President precipitately drew out a pocket-book and extracted a crisp Bank of England note.

"Give it to the Chancellor," he breathed, exhausted.

"I am punished," quoth Manasseh plaintively as he placed it in his bosom. "I should have vowed ten for you." And he bowed himself out.

In like manner did he collect other contributions that day from Sephardic celebrities, pointing out that now a foreign Jew--Yankelé to wit--had been admitted to their communion, it behoved them to show themselves at their best. What a bad effect it would have on Yankelé if a Sephardi was seen to vow with impunity! First impressions were everything, and they could not be too careful. It would not do for Yankelé to circulate contumelious reports of them among his kin. Those who remonstrated with him over his extravagance he reminded that he had only one daughter, and he drew their attention to the favourable influence his example had had on the Saturday receipts. Not a man of those who came after him in the Reading had ventured to offer half-crowns. He had fixed the standard in gold for that day at least, and who knew what noble emulation he had fired for the future?

Every man who yielded to Manasseh's eloquence was a step to reach the next, for Manasseh made a list of donors, and paraded it reproachfully before those who had yet to give. Withal, the most obstinate resistance met him in some quarters. One man--a certain Rodriques, inhabiting a mansion in Finsbury Circus--was positively rude.

"If I came in a carriage, you'd soon pull out your ten-pound note for the Synagogue," sneered Manasseh, his blood boiling.

"Certainly I would," admitted Rodriques laughing. And Manasseh shook off the dust of his threshold in disdain.

By reason of such rebuffs, his collection for the day only reached about thirty pounds, inclusive of the value of some depreciated Portuguese bonds which he good-naturedly accepted as though at par.

Disgusted with the meanness of mankind, da Costa's genius devised more drastic measures. Having carefully locked up the proceeds of Sunday's operations, and, indeed, nearly all his loose cash, in his safe, for, to avoid being put to expense, he rarely carried money on his person, unless he gathered it _en route_, he took his way to Bishopsgate Within, to catch the stage for Clapton. The day was bright, and he hummed a festive Synagogue tune as he plodded leisurely with his stick along the bustling, narrow pavements, bordered by costers' barrows at one edge, and by jagged houses, overhung by grotesque signboards, at the other, and thronged by cits in worsted hose.

But when he arrived at the inn he found the coach had started. Nothing concerned, he ordered a post-chaise in a supercilious manner, criticising the horses, and drove to Clapton in style, drawn by a pair of spanking steeds, to the music of the postillion's horn. Very soon they drew out of the blocked roads, with their lumbering procession of carts, coaches, and chairs, and into open country, green with the fresh verdure of the spring. The chaise stopped at "The Red Cottage," a pretty villa, whose façade was covered with Virginian creeper that blushed in the autumn. Manasseh was surprised at the taste with which the lawn was laid out in the Italian style, with grottoes and marble figures. The householder, hearing the windings of the horn, conceived himself visited by a person of quality, and sent a message that he was in the hands of his hairdresser, but would be down in less than half an hour. This was of a piece with Manasseh's information concerning the man--a certain Belasco, emulous of the great fops, an amateur of satin waistcoats and novel shoestrings, and even said to affect a spying-glass when he showed at Vauxhall. Manasseh had never seen him, not having troubled to go so far afield, but from the handsome appurtenances of the hall and the staircase he augured the best. The apartments were even more to his liking; they were oak panelled, and crammed with the most expensive objects of art and luxury. The walls of the drawing-room were frescoed, and from the ceiling depended a brilliant lustre, with seven spouts for illumination.

Having sufficiently examined the furniture, Manasseh grew weary of waiting, and betook himself to Belasco's bedchamber.

"You will excuse me, Mr. Belasco," he said, as he entered through the half open door, "but my business is urgent."

The young dandy, who was seated before a mirror, did not look up, but replied, "Have a care, sir, you well nigh startled my hairdresser."

"Far be it from me to willingly discompose an artist," replied Manasseh drily, "though from the elegance of the design, I venture to think my interruption will not make a hair's-breadth of difference. But I come on a matter which the son of Benjamin Belasco will hardly deny is more pressing than his toilette."

"Nay, nay, sir, what can be more momentous?"

"The Synagogue!" said Manasseh austerely.

"Pah! What are you talking of, sir?" and he looked up cautiously for the first time at the picturesque figure. "What does the Synagogue want of me? I pay my _finta_ and every bill the rascals send me. Monstrous fine sums, too, egad--"

"But you never go there!"

"No, indeed, a man of fashion cannot be everywhere. Routs and rigotti play the deuce with one's time."

"What a pity!" mused Manasseh ironically. "One misses you there. 'Tis no edifying spectacle--a slovenly rabble with none to set the standard of taste."

The pale-faced beau's eyes lit up with a gleam of interest.

"Ah, the clods!" he said. "You should yourself be a buck of the eccentric school by your dress. But I stick to the old tradition of elegance."

"You had better stick to the old tradition of piety," quoth Manasseh. "Your father was a saint, you are a sinner in Israel. Return to the Synagogue, and herald your return by contributing to its finances. It has made a bad debt, and I am collecting money to reimburse it."

The young exquisite yawned. "I know not who you may be," he said at length, "but you are evidently not one of us. As for the Synagogue I am willing to reform its dress, but dem'd if I will give a shilling more to its finances. Let your slovenly rabble of tradesmen pay the piper--I cannot afford it!"

"_You_ cannot afford it!"

"No--you see I have such extravagant tastes."

"But I give you the opportunity for extravagance," expostulated Manasseh. "What greater luxury is there than that of doing good?"

"Confound it, sir, I must ask you to go," said Beau Belasco coldly. "Do you not perceive that you are disconcerting my hairdresser?"

"I could not abide a moment longer under this profane, if tasteful, roof," said Manasseh, backing sternly towards the door. "But I would make one last appeal to you, for the sake of the repose of your father's soul, to forsake your evil ways."

"Be hanged to you for a meddler," retorted the young blood. "My money supports men of genius and taste--it shall not be frittered away on a pack of fusty shopkeepers."

The _Schnorrer_ drew himself up to his full height, his eyes darted fire. "Farewell, then!" he hissed in terrible tones. "_You will make the third at Grace!_"

He vanished--the dandy started up full of vague alarm, 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 Synagogue?" asked the Beau sullenly. "Where are your credentials?"

"Was it to insult me that you called me back? Do I look a knave? Nay, put up your purse. I'll have none of your filthy gold. Let me go."

Gradually Manasseh was won round to accepting ten sovereigns.

"For your father's sake," he said, pocketing them. "The only thing I will take for your sake is the cost of my conveyance. I had to post hither, and the Synagogue must not be the loser."

Beau Belasco gladly added the extra money, and reseated himself before the mirror, with agreeable sensations in his neglected conscience. "You see," he observed, half apologetically, for Manasseh still lingered, "one cannot do everything. To be a prince of dandies, one needs all one's time." He waved his hand comprehensively around the walls which were lined with wardrobes. "My buckskin breeches were the result of nine separate measurings. Do you note how they fit?"

"They scarcely do justice to your eminent reputation," replied Manasseh candidly.

Beau Belasco's face became whiter than even at the thought of earthquakes and devils. "They fit me to bursting!" he breathed.

"But are they in the pink of fashion?" queried Manasseh. "And assuredly the nankeen pantaloons yonder I recollect to have seen worn last year."

"My tailor said they were of a special cut--'tis a shape I am introducing, baggy--to go with frilled shirts."

Manasseh shook his head sceptically, whereupon the Beau besought him to go through his wardrobe, and set aside anything that lacked originality or extreme fashionableness. After considerable reluctance Manasseh consented, and set aside a few cravats, shirts, periwigs, and suits from the immense collection.

"Aha! That is all you can find," said the Beau gleefully.

"Yes, that is all," said Manasseh sadly. "All I can find that does any justice to your fame. These speak the man of polish and invention; the rest are but tawdry frippery. Anybody might wear them."

"Anybody!" gasped the poor Beau, stricken to the soul.

"Yes, I might wear them myself."

"Thank you! Thank you! You are an honest man. I love true criticism, when the critic has nothing to gain. I am delighted you called. These rags shall go to my valet."

"Nay, why waste them on the heathen?" asked Manasseh, struck with a sudden thought. "Let me dispose of them for the benefit of the Synagogue."

"If it would not be troubling you too much!"

"Is there anything I would not do for Heaven?" said Manasseh with a patronising air. He threw open the door of the adjoining piece suddenly, disclosing the scowling valet on his knees. "Take these down, my man," he said quietly, and the valet was only too glad to hide his confusion at being caught eavesdropping by hastening down to the drive with an armful of satin waistcoats.

Manasseh, getting together the remainder, shook his head despairingly. "I shall never get these into the post-chaise," he said. "You will have to lend me your carriage."

"Can't you come back for them?" said the Beau feebly.

"Why waste the Synagogue's money on hired vehicles? No, if you will crown your kindness by sending the footman along with me to help me unpack them, you shall have your equipage back in an hour or two."

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 again, and swore that the carriage was hired, to be paid for out of the ten pounds.

"Hired?" echoed Manasseh resentfully. "Do you not recognise the arms of my friend, Beau Belasco?" And he presently drove off with the note, for Rodriques had a roguish eye. And then, parting with the chariot, the King took his way on foot to Fenchurch Street, to the house of his cousin Barzillai, the ex-planter of Barbadoes, and now a West Indian merchant.

Barzillai, fearing humiliation before his clerks, always carried his relative off to the neighbouring Franco's Head Tavern, and humoured him with costly liquors.

"But you had no right to donate money you did not possess; it was dishonest," he cried with irrepressible ire.

"Hoity toity!" said Manasseh, setting down his glass so vehemently that the stem shivered. "And were you not called to the Law after me? And did you not donate money?"

"Certainly! But I _had_ the money."

"What! _With_ you?"

"No, no, certainly not. I do not carry money on the Sabbath."

"Exactly. Neither do I."

"But the money was at my bankers'."

"And so it was at mine. _You_ are my bankers, you and others like you. You draw on your bankers--I draw on mine." And his cousin being thus confuted, Manasseh had not much further difficulty in wheedling two pounds ten out of him.

"And now," said he, "I really think you ought to do something to lessen the Synagogue's loss."

"But I have just given!" quoth Barzillai in bewilderment.

"_That_ you gave to me as your cousin, to enable your 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 coffee-house in Exchange Alley, where the brokers foregathered, and 'prentices and students swaggered in to abuse the Ministers, and all kinds of men from bloods to barristers loitered to pick up hints to easy riches. Manasseh detected his quarry in the furthermost box, his face hidden behind a broadsheet.

"Why do you always come to me?" muttered the East India Director helplessly.

"Eh?" said Manasseh, mistrustful of his own ears. "I beg your pardon."

"If your own community cannot support you," said Grobstock, more loudly, and with all the boldness of an animal driven to bay, "why not go to Abraham Goldsmid, or his brother Ben, or to Van Oven, or Oppenheim--they're all more prosperous than I."

"Sir!" said Manasseh wrathfully. "You are a skilful--nay, a famous, financier. You know what stocks to buy, what stocks to sell, when to follow a rise, and when a fall. When the Premier advertises the loans, a thousand speculators look to you for guidance. What would you say if _I_ presumed to interfere in your financial affairs--if I told you to issue these shares or to call in those? You would tell me to mind my own business; and you would be perfectly right. Now _Schnorring_ is _my_ business. Trust me, I know best whom to come to. You stick to stocks and leave _Schnorring_ alone. You are the King of Financiers, but I am the King of _Schnorrers_."

Grobstock's resentment at the rejoinder was mitigated by the compliment to his financial insight. To be put on the same level with the Beggar was indeed unexpected.

"Will you have a cup of coffee?" he said.

"I ought scarcely to drink with you after your reception of me," replied Manasseh unappeased. "It is not even as if I came to _schnorr_ for myself; it is to the finances of our house of worship that I wished to give you an opportunity of contributing."

"Aha! your vaunted community hard up?" queried Joseph, with a complacent twinkle.

"Sir! We are the richest congregation in the world. We want nothing from anybody," indignantly protested Manasseh, as he absent-mindedly took the cup of coffee which Grobstock had ordered for him. "The difficulty merely is that, in honour of my daughter's wedding, I have donated a hundred pounds to the Synagogue which I have not yet managed to collect, although I have already devoted a day-and-a-half of my valuable time to the purpose."

"But why do you come to me?"

"What! Do you ask me that again?"

"I--I--mean," stammered Grobstock--"why should I contribute to a Portuguese Synagogue?"

Manasseh clucked his tongue in despair of such stupidity. "It is just you who should contribute more than any Portuguese."

"I?" Grobstock wondered if he was awake.

"Yes, you. Was not the money spent in honour of the marriage of a German Jew? It was a splendid vindication of your community."

"This is too much!" cried Grobstock, outraged and choking.

"Too much to mark the admission to our fold of the first of your sect! I am disappointed in you, deeply disappointed. I thought you would have applauded my generous behaviour."

"I don't care what you thought!" gasped Grobstock. He was genuinely exasperated at the ridiculousness of the demand, but he was also pleased to find himself preserving so staunch a front against the insidious _Schnorrer_. If he could only keep firm now, he told himself, he might emancipate himself for ever. Yes, he would be strong, and Manasseh should never dare address him again. "I won't pay a stiver," he roared.

"If you make a scene I will withdraw," said Manasseh quietly. "Already there are ears and eyes turned upon you. From your language people will be thinking me a dun and you a bankrupt."

"They can go to the devil!" thundered Grobstock, "and you too!"

"Blasphemer! You counsel me to ask the devil to contribute to the Synagogue! I will not bandy words with you. You refuse, then, to contribute to this fund?"

"I do, I see no reason."

"Not even the five pounds I vowed on behalf of Yankelé himself--one of your own people?"

"What! I pay in honour of Yankelé--a dirty _Schnorrer_!"

"Is this the way you speak of your guests?" said Manasseh, in pained astonishment. "Do you forget that Yankelé has broken bread at your table? Perhaps this is how you talk of me when my back is turned. But, beware! Remember the saying of our sages, 'You and I cannot live in the world,' said God to the haughty man. Come, now! No more paltering or taking refuge in abuse. You refuse me this beggarly five pounds?"

"Most decidedly."

"Very well, then!"

Manasseh called the attendant.

"What are you about to do?" cried Grobstock apprehensively.

"You shall see," said Manasseh resolutely, and when the attendant came, he pressed the price of his cup of coffee into his hand.

Grobstock flushed in silent humiliation. Manasseh rose.

Grobstock's fatal strain of weakness gave him a twinge of compunction at the eleventh hour.

"You see for yourself how unreasonable your request was," he murmured.

"Do not strive to justify yourself, I am done with you," said Manasseh. "I am done with you as a philanthropist. For the future you may besnuff and bespatter your coat as much as you please, for all the trouble I shall ever take. As a financier, I still respect you, and may yet come to you, but as a philanthropist, never."

"Anything I can do--" muttered Grobstock vaguely.

"Let me see!" said Manasseh, looking down upon him thoughtfully. "Ah, yes, an idea! I have collected over sixty pounds. If you would invest this for me--"

"Certainly, certainly," interrupted Grobstock, with conciliatory eagerness.

"Good! With your unrivalled knowledge of the markets, you could easily bring it up to the necessary sum in a day or two. Perhaps even there is some grand _coup_ on the _tapis_, something to be bulled or beared in which you have a hand."

Grobstock nodded his head vaguely. He had already remembered that the proceeding was considerably below his dignity; he was not a stockbroker, never had he done anything of the kind for anyone.

"But suppose I lose it all?" he asked, trying to draw back.

"Impossible," said the _Schnorrer_ serenely. "Do you forget it is a Synagogue fund? Do you think the Almighty will suffer His money to be lost?"

"Then why not speculate yourself?" said Grobstock craftily.

"The Almighty's honour must be guarded. What! 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 manoeuvre, and alongside his own triton Manasseh's minnow might just as well swim. He made the sixty odd pounds into six hundred.

A few days after the Royal Wedding, the glories of which are still a tradition among the degenerate _Schnorrers_ of to-day, Manasseh struck the Chancellor breathless by handing him a bag containing five score of sovereigns. Thus did he honourably fulfil his obligation to the Synagogue, and with more celerity than many a Warden. Nay, more! Justly considering the results of the speculation should accrue to the Synagogue, whose money had been risked, he, with Quixotic scrupulousness, handed over the balance of five hundred pounds to the Mahamad, stipulating only that it should be used to purchase a life-annuity (styled the Da Costa Fund) for a poor and deserving member of the congregation, in whose selection he, as donor, should have the ruling voice. The Council of Five eagerly agreed to his conditions, and a special junta was summoned for the election. The donor's choice fell upon Manasseh Bueno Barzillai Azevedo da Costa, thenceforward universally recognised, and hereby handed down to tradition, as the King of _Schnorrers_.

The Semi-Sentimental Dragon.

There was nothing about the outside of the Dragon to indicate so large a percentage of sentiment. It was a mere every-day Dragon, with the usual squamous hide, glittering like silver armour, a commonplace crested head with a forked tongue, a tail like a barbed arrow, a pair of fan-shaped wings, and four indifferently ferocious claws, one per foot. How it came to be so susceptible you shall hear, and then, perhaps, you will be less surprised at its unprecedented and undragonlike behaviour.

Once upon a time, as the good old chronicler, Richard Johnson, relateth, Egypt was oppressed by a Dragon who made a plaguy to-do unless given a virgin daily for dinner. For twenty-four years the menu was practicable; then the supply gave out. There was absolutely no virgin left in the realm save Sabra, the king's daughter. As 365 × 24 only = 8760, I suspect that the girls were anxious to dodge the Dragon by marrying in haste. The government of the day seems to have been quite unworthy of confidence and utterly unable to grapple with the situation, and poor Ptolemy was reduced to parting with the Princess, though even so destruction was only staved off for a day, as virgins would be altogether "off" on the morrow. So short-sighted was the Egyptian policy that this does not appear to have occurred to anybody. At the last moment an English tourist from Coventry, known as George (and afterwards sainted by an outgoing administration sent to his native borough by the country), resolved to tackle the monster. The chivalrous Englishman came to grief in the encounter, but by rolling under an orange tree he was safe from the Dragon so long as he chose to stay there, and so in the end had no difficulty in despatching the creature; which suggests that the soothsayers and the magicians would have been much better occupied in planting orange trees than in sacrificing virgins. Thus far the story, which is improbable enough to be an allegory.

Now many centuries after these events did not happen, a certain worthy citizen, an illiterate fellow, but none the worse for that, made them into a pantomime--to wit, _St. George and the Dragon; or, Harlequin Tom Thumb_. And the same was duly played at a provincial theatre, with a lightly clad chorus of Egyptian lasses, in glaring contradiction of the dearth of such in the fable, and a Sabra who sang to them a topical song about the County Council.

Curiously enough, in private life, Sabra, although her name was Miss on the posters, was really a Miss. She was quite as young and pretty as she looked, too, and only rouged herself for the sake of stage perspective. I don't mean to say she was as beautiful as the Egyptian princess, who was as straight as a cedar and wore her auburn hair in wanton ringlets, but she was a sprightly little body with sparkling eyes and a complexion that would have been a good advertisement to any soap on earth. But better than Sabra's skin was Sabra's heart, which though as yet untouched by man was full of love and tenderness, and did not faint under the burden of supporting her mother and the household. For instead of having a king for a sire, Sabra had a drunken scene-shifter for a father. Everybody about the theatre liked Sabra, from the actor-manager (who played St. George) to the stage door-keeper (who played St. Peter). Even her under-study did not wish her ill.

Needless, therefore, to say it was Sabra who made the Dragon semi-sentimental. Not in the "book," of course, where his desire to eat her remained purely literal. Real Dragons keep themselves aloof from sentiment, but a stage Dragon is only human. Such a one may be entirely the slave of sentiment, and it was perhaps to the credit of our Dragon that only half of him was in the bonds. The other half--and that the better half--was saturnine and teetotal, and answered to the name of Davie Brigg.

Davie was the head man on the Dragon. He played the anterior parts, waggled the head and flapped the wings and sent gruesome grunts and penny squibs through the "firebreathing" jaws. He was a dour middle-aged, but stagestruck, Scot, very proud of his rapid rise in the profession, for he had begun as a dramatist.

The rear of the Dragon was simply known as Jimmy.

Jimmy was a wreck. His past was a mystery. His face was a brief record of baleful experiences, and he had the aspirates of a gentleman. He had gone on the stage to be out of the snow and the rain. Not knowing this, the actor-manager paid him ninepence a night. His wages just kept him in beer-money. The original Sabra tamed two lions, but perhaps it was a greater feat to tame this half of a Dragon.

Jimmy's tenderness for Sabra began at rehearsal, when he saw a good deal of her, and felicitated himself on the fact that they were on in the same scenes. After a while, however, he perceived this to be a doleful drawback, for whereas at rehearsal he could jump out of his skin and breathe himself and feast his eyes on Sabra when the Dragon was disengaged, on the stage he was forced to remain cramped in darkness while Ptolemy was clowning or St. George executing a step dance. Sabra was invisible, except for an odd moment or so between the scenes when he caught sight of her gliding to her dressing-room like a streak of discreet sunshine. Still he had his compensations; her dulcet notes reached his darkness (mellowed by the painted canvas and the tin scales sewn over it), as the chant of the unseen cuckoo reaches the woodland wanderer. Sometimes, when she sang that song about the County Council, he forgot to wag his tail.

Thus was Love blind, while Indifference in the person of Davie Brigg looked its full through the mask that stood for the monster's head. After a bit Jimmy conceived a mad envy of his superior's privileges; he longed to see Sabra through the Dragon's mouth. He was so weary of the little strip of stage under the Dragon's belly, which, even if he peered through the breathing-holes in the patch of paint-disguised gauze let into its paunch, was the most he could see. One night he asked Davie to change places with him. Davie's look of surprise and consternation was beautiful to see.

"Do I hear aricht?" he asked.

"Just for a night," said Jimmy, abashed.

"But d'ye no ken this is a speakin' part?"

"I did--not--know--that," faltered Jimmy.

"Where's your ears, mon?" inquired Davie sternly. "Dinna ye hear me growlin' and grizzlin' and squealin' and skirlin'?"

"Y--e--s," said Jimmy. "But I thought you did it at random."

"Thocht I did it at random!" cried Davie, holding up his hands in horror. "And mebbe also ye thocht onybody could do't!"

Jimmy's shamed silence gave consent also to this unflinching interpretation of his thought.

"Ah weel!" said Davie, with melancholy resignation, "this is the artist's reward for his sweat and labour. Why, mon, let me tell ye, ilka note is not ainly timed but modulatit to the dramatic eenterest o' the moment, and that I hae practised the squeak hours at a time wi' a bagpiper. Tak' my place, indeed! Are ye fou again, or hae ye tint your senses?"

"But you could do the words all the same. I only want to see for once."

"And how d'ye think the words should sound, coming from the creature's belly? And what should ye see! You should nae ken where to go, I warrant. Come, I'll spier ye. Where d'ye come in for the fight with St. George--is it R 2 E or L U E?"

"L U E," replied Jimmy feebly.

"Ye donnered auld runt!" cried Davie triumphantly. "'Tis neither one nor t'other. 'Tis R C. Why, ye're capable of deein' up stage instead of down! Ye'd spoil my great scene. And ye are to remember I wad bear the wyte for 't, for naebody but our two sel's should ken the truth. Nay, nay, my mon. I hae my responsibeelities to the management. Ye're all verra weel in a subordinate position, but dinna ye aspire to more than beseems your abeelities. I am richt glad ye spoke me. Eh, but it would be an awfu' thing if I was taken bad and naebody to play the part. I'll warn the manager to put on an under-study betimes."

"Oh, but let _me_ be the under-study, then," pleaded Jimmy.

Davie sniffed scornfully.

"'Tis a braw thing, ambeetion," he said, "but there's a proverb about it ye ken, mebbe."

"But I'll notice everything you do, and exactly how you do it!"

Davie relented a little.

"Ah, weel," he said cautiously, "I'll bide a wee before speaking to the manager."

But Davie remained doggedly robust, and so Jimmy still walked in darkness. He often argued the matter out with his superior, maintaining that they ought to toss for the position--head or tail. Failing to convince Davie, he offered him fourpence a night for the accommodation, but Davie saw in this extravagance evidence of a determined design to supplant him. In despair Jimmy watched for a chance of slipping into the wire framework before Davie, but the conscientious artist was always at his post first. They held dialogues on the subject, while with pantomimic license the chorus of Egyptian lasses was dancing round the Dragon as if it were a maypole. Their angry messages to each other vibrated along the wires of their prison-house, rending the Dragon with intestinal war. Weave your cloud-wrought Utopias, O social reformer, but wherever men inhabit, there jealousy and disunion shall creep in, and this gaudy canvas tent with its tin roofing was a hotbed of envy, hatred, and all uncharitableness. Yet Love was there, too--a stranger, purer passion than the battered Jimmy had ever known; for it had the unselfishness of a love that can never be more than a dream, that the beloved can never even know of. Perhaps, if Jimmy had met Sabra before he left off being a gentleman--!

The silent, hopeless longing, the chivalrous devotion yearning dumbly within him, did not stop his beer; he drank more to drown his thoughts. Every night he entered into his part gladly, knowing himself elevated in the zoological scale, not degraded, by an assumption that made him only half a beast. It was kind of Providence to hide him wholly away from her vision, so that her bright eyes might not be sullied by the sight of his foulness. None of the grinning audience suspected the tragedy of the hind legs of the Dragon, as blindly following their leader, they went "galumphing" about the stage. The innocent children marvelled at the monster, in wide-eyed excitement, unsuspecting even its humanity, much less its double nature; only Davie knew that in that Dragon there were the ruins of a man and the makings of a great actor!

"Why are ye sae anxious to stand in my shoon?" he would ask, when the hind legs became too obstreperous.

"I don't want to be in your shoes; I only want to see the stage for once."

But Davie would shake his head incredulously, making the Dragon's mask wobble at the wrong cues. At last, once when Sabra was singing, poor Jimmy, driven to extremities, confessed the truth, and had the mortification of feeling the wires vibrate with the Scotchman's silent laughter. He blushed unseen.

But it transpired that Davie's amusement was not so much scornful as sceptical. He still suspected the tail of a sinister intention to wag the Dragon.

"Nae, nae," he said, "ye shallna get me to swallow that. Ye're an unco puir creature, but ye're no sa daft as to want the moon. She's a bonnie lassie, and I willna be surprised if she catches a coronet in the end, when she makes a name in Lunnon; for the swells here, though I see a wheen foolish faces nicht after nicht in the stalls, are but a puir lot. Eh, but it's a gey grand tocher is a pretty face. In the meanwhiles, like a canny girl, she's settin' her cap at the chief."

"Hold your tongue!" hissed the hind legs. "She's as pure as an angel."

"Hoot-toot!" answered the head. "Dinna leebel the angels. It's no an angel that lets her manager give her sly squeezes and saft kisses that are nae in the stage directions."

"Then she can't know he's a married man," said the hind legs hoarsely.

"Dinna fash yoursel'--she kens that full weel and a thocht or two more. Dod! Ye should just see how she and St. George carry on after my death scene, when he's supposit to ha' rescued her and they fall a-cuddlin'."

"You're a liar!" said the hind legs.

Davie roared and breathed burning squibs and capered about, and Jimmy had to prance after him in involuntary pursuit. He felt choking in his stuffy hot black rollicking dungeon. The thought of this bloated sexagenarian faked up as a _jeune premier_, pawing that sweet little girl, sickened him.

"Dom'd leear yersel!" resumed Davie, coming to a standstill. "I maun believe my own eyes, what they tell me nicht after nicht."

"Then let me see for myself, and I'll believe you."

"Ye dinna catch me like that," said Davie, chuckling.