The King of Schnorrers: Grotesques and Fantasies. Zangwill Israel

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СКАЧАТЬ told you!"

      "I mean he told me you told me to," said Wilkinson wonderingly. "Didn't you?"

      Grobstock hesitated. Since Manasseh would be his guest, was it not imprudent to give him away to the livery-servant? Besides, he felt a secret pleasure in Wilkinson's humiliation – but for the Schnorrer he would never have known that Wilkinson's gold lace concealed a pliable personality. The proverb "Like master like man" did not occur to Grobstock at this juncture.

      "I only meant you to carry it to a coach," he murmured.

      "He said it was not worth while – the distance was so short."

      "Ah! Did you see his house?" enquired Grobstock curiously.

      "Yes; a very fine house in Aldgate, with a handsome portico and two stone lions."

      Grobstock strove hard not to look surprised.

      "I handed the box to the footman."

      Grobstock strove harder.

      Wilkinson ended with a weak smile: "Would you believe, sir, I thought at first he brought home your fish! He dresses so peculiarly. He must be an original."

      "Yes, yes; an eccentric like Baron D'Aguilar, whom he visits," said Grobstock eagerly. He wondered, indeed, whether he was not speaking the truth. Could he have been the victim of a practical joke, a prank? Did not a natural aristocracy ooze from every pore of his mysterious visitor? Was not every tone, every gesture, that of a man born to rule? "You must remember, too," he added, "that he is a Spaniard."

      "Ah, I see," said Wilkinson in profound accents.

      "I daresay he dresses like everybody else, though, when he dines or sups out," Grobstock added lightly. "I only brought him in by accident. But go to your mistress! She wants you."

      "Yes, sir. Oh, by the way, I forgot to tell you he hopes you will save him a slice of his salmon."

      "Go to your mistress!"

      "You did not tell me a Spanish nobleman was coming to us on Friday," said his spouse later in the evening.

      "No," he admitted curtly.

      "But is he?"

      "No – at least, not a nobleman."

      "What then? I have to learn about my guests from my servants."

      "Apparently."

      "Oh! and you think that's right!"

      "To gossip with your servants? Certainly not."

      "If my husband will not tell me anything – if he has only eyes for sedan chairs."

      Joseph thought it best to kiss Mrs. Grobstock.

      "A fellow-Director, I suppose?" she urged, more mildly.

      "A fellow-Israelite. He has promised to come at six."

      Manasseh was punctual to the second. Wilkinson ushered him in. The hostess had robed herself in her best to do honour to a situation which her husband awaited with what hope he could. She looked radiant in a gown of blue silk; her hair was done in a tuft and round her neck was an "esclavage," consisting of festoons of gold chains. The Sabbath table was equally festive with its ponderous silver candelabra, coffee-urn, and consecration cup, its flower-vases, and fruit-salvers. The dining-room itself was a handsome apartment; its buffets glittered with Venetian glass and Dresden porcelain, and here and there gilt pedestals supported globes of gold and silver fish.

      At the first glance at his guest Grobstock's blood ran cold.

      Manasseh had not turned a hair, nor changed a single garment. At the next glance Grobstock's blood boiled. A second figure loomed in Manasseh's wake – a short Schnorrer, even dingier than da Costa, and with none of his dignity, a clumsy, stooping Schnorrer, with a cajoling grin on his mud-coloured, hairy face. Neither removed his headgear.

      Mrs. Grobstock remained glued to her chair in astonishment.

      "Peace be unto you," said the King of Schnorrers, "I have brought with me my friend Yankelé ben Yitzchok of whom I told you."

      Yankelé nodded, grinning harder than ever.

      "You never told me he was coming," Grobstock rejoined, with an apoplectic air.

      "Did I not tell you that he always supped with me on Friday evenings?" Manasseh reminded him quietly. "It is so good of him to accompany me even here – he will make the necessary third at grace."

      The host took a frantic surreptitious glance at his wife. It was evident that her brain was in a whirl, the evidence of her senses conflicting with vague doubts of the possibilities of Spanish grandeeism and with a lingering belief in her husband's sanity.

      Grobstock resolved to snatch the benefit of her doubts. "My dear," said he, "this is Mr. da Costa."

      "Manasseh Bueno Barzillai Azevedo da Costa," said the Schnorrer.

      The dame seemed a whit startled and impressed. She bowed, but words of welcome were still congealed in her throat.

      "And this is Yankelé ben Yitzchok," added Manasseh. "A poor friend of mine. I do not doubt, Mrs. Grobstock, that as a pious woman, the daughter of Moses Bernberg (his memory for a blessing), you prefer grace with three."

      "Any friend of yours is welcome!" She found her lips murmuring the conventional phrase without being able to check their output.

      "I never doubted that either," said Manasseh gracefully. "Is not the hospitality of Moses Bernberg's beautiful daughter a proverb?"

      Moses Bernberg's daughter could not deny this; her salon was the rendezvous of rich bagmen, brokers and bankers, tempered by occasional young bloods and old bucks not of the Jewish faith (nor any other). But she had never before encountered a personage so magnificently shabby, nor extended her proverbial hospitality to a Polish Schnorrer uncompromisingly musty. Joseph did not dare meet her eye.

      "Sit down there, Yankelé," he said hurriedly, in ghastly genial accents, and he indicated a chair at the farthest possible point from the hostess. He placed Manasseh next to his Polish parasite, and seated himself as a buffer between his guests and his wife. He was burning with inward indignation at the futile rifling of his wardrobe, but he dared not say anything in the hearing of his spouse.

      "It is a beautiful custom, this of the Sabbath guest, is it not, Mrs. Grobstock?" remarked Manasseh as he took his seat. "I never neglect it – even when I go out to the Sabbath-meal as to-night."

      The late Miss Bernberg was suddenly reminded of auld lang syne: her father (who according to a wag of the period had divided his time between the Law and the profits) having been a depositary of ancient tradition. Perhaps these obsolescent customs, unsuited to prosperous times, had lingered longer among the Spanish grandees. She seized an early opportunity, when the Sephardic Schnorrer was taking his coffee from Wilkinson, of putting the question to her husband, who fell in weakly with her illusions. He knew there was no danger of Manasseh's beggarly status leaking out; no expressions of gratitude were likely to fall from that gentleman's lips. He even hinted that da Costa dressed so fustily to keep his poor friend in countenance. Nevertheless, Mrs. Grobstock, while not without admiration for the Quixotism, was not without resentment for being dragged into it. She felt that such charity should begin and end СКАЧАТЬ