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 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