"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 sell things in the streets. I am a son of the Law, a student of the Talmud."
"If a crown piece will satisfy each of these claims – "
"I am not a blood-sucker – as it is said in the Talmud, Tractate Passover, 'God loves the man who gives not way to wrath nor stickles for his rights' – that makes altogether three guineas and three crowns."
"Yes. Here they are."
Wilkinson reappeared. "You called me, sir?" he said.
"No, I called you," said Manasseh, "I wished to give you a crown."
And he handed him one of the three. Wilkinson took it, stupefied, and retired.
"Did I not get rid of him cleverly?" said Manasseh. "You see how he obeys me!"
"Ye-es."
"I shall not ask you for more than the bare crown I gave him to save your honour."
"To save my honour!"
"Would you have had me tell him the real reason I called him was that his master was a thief? No, sir, I was careful not to shed your blood in public, though you had no such care for mine."
"Here is the crown!" said Grobstock savagely. "Nay, here are three!" He turned out his breeches-pockets to exhibit their absolute nudity.
"No, no," said Manasseh mildly, "I shall take but two. You had best keep the other – you may want a little silver." He pressed it into the magnate's hand.
"You should not be so prodigal in future," he added, in kindly reproach. "It is bad to be left with nothing in one's pocket – I know the feeling, and can sympathise with you." Grobstock stood speechless, clasping the crown of charity.
Standing thus at the hall door, he had the air of Wilkinson, surprised by a too generous vail.
Da Costa cut short the crisis by offering his host a pinch from the jewel-crusted snuff-box. Grobstock greedily took the whole box, the beggar resigning it to him without protest. In his gratitude for this unexpected favour, Grobstock pocketed the silver insult without further ado, and led the way towards the second-hand clothes. He walked gingerly, so as not to awaken his wife, who was a great amateur of the siesta, and might issue suddenly from her apartment like a spider, but Manasseh stolidly thumped on the stairs with his staff. Happily the carpet was thick.
The clothes hung in a mahogany wardrobe with a plateglass front in Grobstock's elegantly appointed bedchamber.
Grobstock rummaged among them while Manasseh, parting the white Persian curtains lined with pale pink, gazed out of the window towards the Tenterground that stretched in the rear of the mansion. Leaning on his staff, he watched the couples promenading among the sunlit parterres and amid the shrubberies, in the cool freshness of declining day. Here and there the vivid face of a dark-eyed beauty gleamed like a passion-flower. Manasseh surveyed the scene with bland benevolence; at peace with God and man.
He did not deign to bestow a glance upon the garments till Grobstock observed: "There! I think that's all I can spare." Then he turned leisurely and regarded – with the same benign aspect – the litter Grobstock had spread upon the bed – a medley of articles in excellent condition, gorgeous neckerchiefs piled in three-cornered hats, and buckled shoes trampling on white waistcoats. But his eye had scarcely rested