The King of Schnorrers: Grotesques and Fantasies. Zangwill Israel

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СКАЧАТЬ style="font-size:15px;">      "I see you did save me a slice of salmon," said Manasseh, manipulating his fish.

      "What salmon was that?" asked the hostess, pricking up her ears.

      "One I had from Mr. da Costa on Wednesday," said the host.

      "Oh, that! It was delicious. I am sure it was very kind of you, Mr. da Costa, to make us such a nice present," said the hostess, her resentment diminishing. "We had company last night, and everybody praised it till none was left. This is another, but I hope it is to your liking," she finished anxiously.

      "Yes, it's very fair, very fair, indeed. I don't know when I've tasted better, except at the house of the President of the Deputados. But Yankelé here is a connoisseur in fish, not easy to please. What say you, Yankelé?"

      Yankelé munched a muffled approval.

      "Help yourself to more bread and butter, Yankelé," said Manasseh. "Make yourself at home – remember you're my guest." Silently he added: "The other fork!"

      Grobstock's irritation found vent in a complaint that the salad wanted vinegar.

      "How can you say so? It's perfect," said Mrs. Grobstock. "Salad is cook's speciality."

      Manasseh tasted it critically. "On salads you must come to me," he said. "It does not want vinegar," was his verdict; "but a little more oil would certainly improve it. Oh, there is no one dresses salad like Hyman!"

      Hyman's fame as the Kosher chef who superintended the big dinners at the London Tavern had reached Mrs. Grobstock's ears, and she was proportionately impressed.

      "They say his pastry is so good," she observed, to be in the running.

      "Yes," said Manasseh, "in kneading and puffing he stands alone."

      "Our cook's tarts are quite as nice," said Grobstock roughly.

      "We shall see," Manasseh replied guardedly. "Though, as for almond-cakes, Hyman himself makes none better than I get from my cousin, Barzillai of Fenchurch Street."

      "Your cousin!" exclaimed Grobstock, "the West Indian merchant!"

      "The same – formerly of Barbadoes. Still, your cook knows how to make coffee, though I can tell you do not get it direct from the plantation like the wardens of my Synagogue."

      Grobstock was once again piqued with curiosity as to the Schnorrer's identity.

      "You accuse me of having stone figures in my house," he said boldly, "but what about the lions in front of yours?"

      "I have no lions," said Manasseh.

      "Wilkinson told me so. Didn't you, Wilkinson?"

      "Wilkinson is a slanderer. That was the house of Nathaniel Furtado."

      Grobstock began to choke with chagrin. He perceived at once that the Schnorrer had merely had the clothes conveyed direct to the house of a wealthy private dealer.

      "Take care!" exclaimed the Schnorrer anxiously, "you are spluttering sauce all over that waistcoat, without any consideration for me."

      Joseph suppressed himself with an effort. Open discussion would betray matters to his wife, and he was now too deeply enmeshed in falsehoods by default. But he managed to whisper angrily, "Why did you tell Wilkinson I ordered him to carry your box?"

      "To save your credit in his eyes. How was he to know we had quarrelled? He would have thought you discourteous to your guest."

      "That's all very fine. But why did you sell my clothes?"

      "You did not expect me to wear them? No, I know my station, thank God."

      "What is that you are saying, Mr. da Costa?" asked the hostess.

      "Oh, we are talking of Dan Mendoza," replied Grobstock glibly; "wondering if he'll beat Dick Humphreys at Doncaster."

      "Oh, Joseph, didn't you have enough of Dan Mendoza at supper last night?" protested his wife.

      "It is not a subject I ever talk about," said the Schnorrer, fixing his host with a reproachful glance.

      Grobstock desperately touched his foot under the table, knowing he was selling his soul to the King of Schnorrers, but too flaccid to face the moment.

      "No, da Costa doesn't usually," he admitted. "Only Dan Mendoza being a Portuguese I happened to ask if he was ever seen in the Synagogue."

      "If I had my way," growled da Costa, "he should be excommunicated – a bruiser, a defacer of God's image!"

      "By gad, no!" cried Grobstock, stirred up. "If you had seen him lick the Badger in thirty-five minutes on a twenty-four foot stage – "

      "Joseph! Joseph! Remember it is the Sabbath!" cried Mrs. Grobstock.

      "I would willingly exchange our Dan Mendoza for your David Levi," said da Costa severely.

      David Levi was the literary ornament of the Ghetto; a shoe-maker and hat-dresser who cultivated Hebrew philology and the Muses, and broke a lance in defence of his creed with Dr. Priestley, the discoverer of Oxygen, and Tom Paine, the discoverer of Reason.

      "Pshaw! David Levi! The mad hatter!" cried Grobstock. "He makes nothing at all out of his books."

      "You should subscribe for more copies," retorted Manasseh.

      "I would if you wrote them," rejoined Grobstock, with a grimace.

      "I got six copies of his Lingua Sacra," Manasseh declared with dignity, "and a dozen of his translation of the Pentateuch."

      "You can afford it!" snarled Grobstock, with grim humour. "I have to earn my money."

      "It is very good of Mr. da Costa, all the same," interposed the hostess. "How many men, born to great possessions, remain quite indifferent to learning!"

      "True, most true," said da Costa. "Men-of-the-Earth, most of them."

      After supper he trolled the Hebrew grace hilariously, assisted by Yankelé, and ere he left he said to the hostess, "May the Lord bless you with children!"

      "Thank you," she answered, much moved.

      "You see I should be so pleased to marry your daughter if you had one."

      "You are very complimentary," she murmured, but her husband's exclamation drowned hers, "You marry my daughter!"

      "Who else moves among better circles – would be more easily able to find her a suitable match?"

      "Oh, in that sense," said Grobstock, mollified in one direction, irritated in another.

      "In what other sense? You do not think I, a Sephardi, would marry her myself!"

      "My daughter does not need your assistance," replied Grobstock shortly.

      "Not yet," admitted Manasseh, rising to go; "but when the time comes, where will you find a better marriage broker? I have had a finger in the marriage of greater men's daughters. You see, when I recommend a maiden or a young man it is from no surface knowledge. I have seen them in the intimacy of their homes СКАЧАТЬ