The King of Schnorrers: Grotesques and Fantasies. Zangwill Israel

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СКАЧАТЬ manœuvring landed him in a worse plight than ever. He would have to present Manasseh to the livery servant without even that clean face which might not unreasonably have been expected for the Sabbath. Despite the text quoted by the erudite Schnorrer, he strove to put off the evil hour.

      "Had you not better take the salmon home to your wife first?" said he.

      "My duty is to enable you to complete your good deed at once. My wife is unaware of the salmon. She is in no suspense."

      Even as the Schnorrer spake it flashed upon Grobstock that Manasseh was more presentable with the salmon than without it – in fact, that the salmon was the salvation of the situation. When Grobstock bought fish he often hired a man to carry home the spoil. Manasseh would have all the air of such a loafer. Who would suspect that the fish and even the bag belonged to the porter, though purchased with the gentleman's money? Grobstock silently thanked Providence for the ingenious way in which it had contrived to save his self-respect. As a mere fish-carrier Manasseh would attract no second glance from the household; once safely in, it would be comparatively easy to smuggle him out, and when he did come on Friday night it would be in the metamorphosing glories of a body-coat, with his unspeakable undergarment turned into a shirt and his turban knocked into a cocked hat.

      They emerged into Aldgate, and then turned down Leman Street, a fashionable quarter, and so into Great Prescott Street. At the critical street corner Grobstock's composure began to desert him: he took out his handsomely ornamented snuff-box and administered to himself a mighty pinch. It did him good, and he walked on and was well nigh arrived at his own door when Manasseh suddenly caught him by a coat button.

      "Stand still a second," he cried imperatively.

      "What is it?" murmured Grobstock, in alarm.

      "You have spilt snuff all down your coat front," Manasseh replied severely. "Hold the bag a moment while I brush it off."

      Joseph obeyed, and Manasseh scrupulously removed every particle with such patience that Grobstock's was exhausted.

      "Thank you," he said at last, as politely as he could. "That will do."

      "No, it will not do," replied Manasseh. "I cannot have my coat spoiled. By the time it comes to me it will be a mass of stains if I don't look after it."

      "Oh, is that why you took so much trouble?" said Grobstock, with an uneasy laugh.

      "Why else? Do you take me for a beadle, a brusher of gaiters?" enquired Manasseh haughtily. "There now! that is the cleanest I can get it. You would escape these droppings if you held your snuff-box so – " Manasseh gently took the snuff-box and began to explain, walking on a few paces.

      "Ah, we are at home!" he cried, breaking off the object-lesson suddenly. He pushed open the gate, ran up the steps of the mansion and knocked thunderously, then snuffed himself magnificently from the bejewelled snuff-box.

      Behind came Joseph Grobstock, slouching limply, and carrying Manasseh da Costa's fish.

      CHAPTER II

      SHOWING HOW THE KING REIGNED

      When he realised that he had been turned into a fish-porter, the financier hastened up the steps so as to be at the Schnorrer's side when the door opened.

      The livery-servant was visibly taken aback by the spectacle of their juxtaposition.

      "This salmon to the cook!" cried Grobstock desperately, handing him the bag.

      Da Costa looked thunders, and was about to speak, but Grobstock's eye sought his in frantic appeal. "Wait a minute; I will settle with you," he cried, congratulating himself on a phrase that would carry another meaning to Wilkinson's ears. He drew a breath of relief when the flunkey disappeared, and left them standing in the spacious hall with its statues and plants.

      "Is this the way you steal my salmon, after all?" demanded da Costa hotly.

      "Hush, hush! I didn't mean to steal it! I will pay you for it!"

      "I refuse to sell! You coveted it from the first – you have broken the Tenth Commandment, even as these stone figures violate the Second. Your invitation to me to accompany you here at once was a mere trick. Now I understand why you were so eager."

      "No, no, da Costa. Seeing that you placed the fish in my hands, I had no option but to give it to Wilkinson, because – because – " Grobstock would have had some difficulty in explaining, but Manasseh saved him the pain.

      "You had to give my fish to Wilkinson!" he interrupted. "Sir, I thought you were a fine man, a man of honour. I admit that I placed my fish in your hands. But because I had no hesitation in allowing you to carry it, this is how you repay my confidence!"

      In the whirl of his thoughts Grobstock grasped at the word "repay" as a swimmer in a whirlpool grasps at a straw.

      "I will repay your money!" he cried. "Here are your two guineas. You will get another salmon, and more cheaply. As you pointed out, you could have got this for twenty-five shillings."

      "Two guineas!" ejaculated Manasseh contemptuously. "Why you offered Jonathan, the fishmonger, three!"

      Grobstock was astounded, but it was beneath him to bargain. And he remembered that, after all, he would enjoy the salmon.

      "Well, here are three guineas," he said pacifically, offering them.

      "Three guineas!" echoed Manasseh, spurning them. "And what of my profit?"

      "Profit!" gasped Grobstock.

      "Since you have made me a middle-man, since you have forced me into the fish trade, I must have my profits like anybody else."

      "Here is a crown extra!"

      "And my compensation?"

      "What do you mean?" enquired Grobstock, exasperated. "Compensation for what?"

      "For what? For two things at the very least," Manasseh said unswervingly. "In the first place," and as he began his logically divided reply his tone assumed the sing-song sacred to Talmudical dialectics, "compensation for not eating the salmon myself. For it is not as if I offered it you – I merely entrusted it to you, and it is ordained in Exodus that if a man shall deliver unto his neighbour an ass, or an ox, or a sheep, or any beast to keep, then for every matter of trespass, whether it be for ox, for ass, for sheep, for raiment, or for any manner of lost thing, the man shall receive double, and therefore you should pay me six guineas. And secondly – "

      "Not another farthing!" spluttered Grobstock, red as a turkey-cock.

      "Very well," said the Schnorrer imperturbably, and, lifting up his voice, he called "Wilkinson!"

      "Hush!" commanded Grobstock. "What are you doing?"

      "I will tell Wilkinson to bring back my property."

      "Wilkinson will not obey you."

      "Not obey me! A servant! Why he is not even black! All the Sephardim I visit have black pages – much grander than Wilkinson – and they tremble at my nod. At Baron D'Aguilar's mansion in Broad Street Buildings there is a retinue of twenty-four servants, and they – "

      "And what is your second claim?"

      "Compensation for being degraded to fishmongering. I am not of those who СКАЧАТЬ