“That was a pretty girl you walked with last evening,” Aaron Hirsch
remarked, and, rolling his large gray eyes, emitted a cackle, “It takes
a poet to know what is what—hey?”
This magpie repeated the same remark to Albert’s “esteemed uncle.” He
only phrased it a little differently.
“Your esteemed nephew is rapidly learning the ways of Hamburg,” Aaron
said to the banker, with a cringing, ingratiating laugh. “If you had
seen him stroll along Beckerstrasse with a brunette on his arm you would
have imagined him a born Hamburger.”
Leopold Zorn grew angry and sent Aaron about his business. A few minutes
later he called him back.
“I meant no harm, Herr Banquier,” Aaron was making obsequious apologies.
“May the Lord so help me, I meant no offense to your esteemed nephew.
Far be it from me to even hint at any offense to the most remote
relative of my benefactor. No, indeed. The girl he walked with was no
hussy on the Jungfernstieg. She is a most respectable girl. That she is,
Herr Banquier; I happen to know her father. I sold him a lottery ticket
last year and he won fifty marks at the first drawing. A very honorable
man is M’sieu Charaux—a relative of the widow Rodbertus—a very fine
woman with whom your esteemed nephew is lodging. Indeed, the girl is a
real lady—what people in your high social station would call a
_Mademoiselle_. You need have no fear about your esteemed nephew—no,
indeed; I keep my eye on him all the time. Blood certainly will tell. He
is a well-behaved young man—a chip off the old block, as the saying
goes.”
Admonishing Aaron not to discuss his nephew, the banker told him to keep
his eye on the young man.
“That I will, sir,” Hirsch assured his patron.