The King of Schnorrers: Grotesques and Fantasies. Zangwill Israel

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СКАЧАТЬ responded to the appeal. It would be indeed petty to scrutinise his pockets, or to feel the linings for odd coins. After all he had Manasseh's promise to restore papers and everything of no value.

      "Well, well," he said pleasantly, consoled by the thought his troubles had now come to an end – for that day at least – "take them away as they are."

      "It is all very well to say take them away," replied Manasseh, with a touch of resentment, "but what am I to take them in?"

      "Oh – ah – yes! There must be a sack somewhere – "

      "And do you think I would carry them away in a sack? Would you have me look like an old clo' man? I must have a box. I see several in the box-room."

      "Very well," said Grobstock resignedly. "If there's an empty one you may have it."

      Manasseh laid his stick on the dressing-table and carefully examined the boxes, some of which were carelessly open, while every lock had a key sticking in it. They had travelled far and wide with Grobstock, who invariably combined pleasure with business.

      "There is none quite empty," announced the Schnorrer, "but in this one there are only a few trifles – a pair of galligaskins and such like – so that if you make me a present of them the box will be empty, so far as you are concerned."

      "All right," said Grobstock, and actually laughed. The nearer the departure of the Schnorrer, the higher his spirits rose.

      Manasseh dragged the box towards the bed, and then for the first time since his return from the under-regions, surveyed the medley of garments upon it.

      The light-hearted philanthropist, watching his face, saw it instantly change to darkness, like a tropical landscape. His own face grew white. The Schnorrer uttered an inarticulate cry, and turned a strange, questioning glance upon his patron.

      "What is it now?" faltered Grobstock.

      "I miss a pair of pantaloons!"

      Grobstock grew whiter. "Nonsense! nonsense!" he muttered.

      "I – miss – a – pair – of – pantaloons!" reiterated the Schnorrer deliberately.

      "Oh, no – you have all I can spare there," said Grobstock uneasily. The Schnorrer hastily turned over the heap.

      Then his eye flashed fire; he banged his fist on the dressing-table to accompany each staccato syllable.

      "I – miss – a – pair – of – pan – ta – loons!" he shrieked.

      The weak and ductile donor had a bad quarter of a minute.

      "Perhaps," he stammered at last, "you – m – mean – the new pair I found had got accidentally mixed up with them."

      "Of course I mean the new pair! And so you took them away! Just because I wasn't looking. I left the room, thinking I had to do with a man of honour. If you had taken an old pair I shouldn't have minded so much; but to rob a poor man of his brand-new breeches!"

      "I must have them," cried Grobstock irascibly. "I have to go to a reception to-morrow, and they are the only pair I shall have to wear. You see I – "

      "Oh, very well," interrupted the Schnorrer, in low, indifferent tones.

      After that there was a dead silence. The Schnorrer majestically folded some silk stockings and laid them in the box. Upon them he packed other garments in stern, sorrowful hauteur. Grobstock's soul began to tingle with pricks of compunction. Da Costa completed his task, but could not shut the overcrowded box. Grobstock silently seated his weighty person upon the lid. Manasseh neither resented nor welcomed him. When he had turned the key he mutely tilted the sitter off the box and shouldered it with consummate ease. Then he took his staff and strode from the room. Grobstock would have followed him, but the Schnorrer waved him back.

      "On Friday, then," the conscience-stricken magnate said feebly.

      Manasseh did not reply; he slammed the door instead, shutting in the master of the house.

      Grobstock fell back on the bed exhausted, looking not unlike the tumbled litter of clothes he replaced. In a minute or two he raised himself and went to the window, and stood watching the sun set behind the trees of the Tenterground. "At any rate I've done with him," he said, and hummed a tune. The sudden bursting open of the door froze it upon his lips. He was almost relieved to find the intruder was only his wife.

      "What have you done with Wilkinson?" she cried vehemently. She was a pale, puffy-faced, portly matron, with a permanent air of remembering the exact figure of her dowry.

      "With Wilkinson, my dear? Nothing."

      "Well, he isn't in the house. I want him, but cook says you've sent him out."

      "I? Oh, no," he returned, with dawning uneasiness, looking away from her sceptical gaze.

      Suddenly his pupils dilated. A picture from without had painted itself on his retina. It was a picture of Wilkinson – Wilkinson the austere, Wilkinson the unbending – treading the Tenterground gravel, curved beneath a box! Before him strode the Schnorrer.

      Never during all his tenure of service in Goodman's Fields had Wilkinson carried anything on his shoulders but his livery. Grobstock would have as soon dreamt of his wife consenting to wear cotton. He rubbed his eyes, but the image persisted.

      He clutched at the window curtains to steady himself.

      "My Persian curtains!" cried his wife. "What is the matter with you?"

      "He must be the Baal Shem himself!" gasped Grobstock unheeding.

      "What is it? What are you looking at?"

      "N – nothing."

      Mrs. Grobstock incredulously approached the window and stared through the panes. She saw Wilkinson in the gardens, but did not recognise him in his new attitude. She concluded that her husband's agitation must have some connection with a beautiful brunette who was tasting the cool of the evening in a sedan chair, and it was with a touch of asperity that she said: "Cook complains of being insulted by a saucy fellow who brought home your fish."

      "Oh!" said poor Grobstock. Was he never to be done with the man?

      "How came you to send him to her?"

      His anger against Manasseh resurged under his wife's peevishness.

      "My dear," he cried, "I did not send him anywhere – except to the devil."

      "Joseph! You might keep such language for the ears of creatures in sedan chairs."

      And Mrs. Grobstock flounced out of the room with a rustle of angry satin.

      When Wilkinson reappeared, limp and tired, with his pompousness exuded in perspiration, he sought his master with a message, which he delivered ere the flood of interrogation could burst from Grobstock's lips.

      "Mr. da Costa presents his compliments, and says that he has decided on reconsideration not to break his promise to be with you on Friday evening."

      "Oh, indeed!" said Grobstock grimly. "And, pray, how came you to carry his box?"

      "You told me to, sir!"

      "I СКАЧАТЬ