And all the while Oberon was in one or other of his castles--in Ireland,
in Wales, in Spain, in that dim country where the dreams are made, in
Weissnichtwo--living the fairy life, making the birds, flowers, clouds
and rivers happier; yet, never for the tithe of an instant, forgetting
the madness of June.
The particular newspaper we refuse to have anything to do with, O
reader--the newspaper whose opinions we despise and deplore--scoffed at
the fairies in its usual cocksure way, as was to be expected! It
professed to regard the Lord Mayor's plea as the agreeable sentiment of
a well-dined gentleman, and made play with a leaderette in which Titania
was called a myth and the fairies fruits of nightmare.
Such conduct on the part of a widely-read journal had to be answered.
June--let it be granted--treated its iconoclastic persiflage with the
toleration of contempt. She, too, did not read the newspapers; but
Archdeacon Pryde, who recognized that Sir Titus would not condescend to
defend himself against such an attack, and remembering that he also was
involved in that halfpenny condemnation, called a cab, packed a
snuff-box with voice-lozenges, and went with heat and dudgeon to the
headquarters of the offending newspaper.
He was welcomed with a military salute by the commissionaire at the
gate; snapshotted thrice--when paying the cabman, eating a lozenge, and
handing his card to a youth in the enquiry office. When inside the
editorial sanctum, he was induced to pose for two flash-light
photographs--one showing him engaged in earnest talk with the great man,
the other with his hand resting on the tousled head of a printer's
devil.
These pictures were to illustrate an "interview"--dictated to a
shorthand writer--which explained the Archdeacon's ideas and intentions
in connection with his and the Lord Mayor's new determinings, and so
gave the Editor an excuse for a _volte-face_.
The Archdeacon was in a rapture of enthusiasm white hot. This prominent
usefulness, or useful prominence, was gratifying. He promised to send
his menu, that the inscribed resolutions might be reproduced in
facsimile for the morrow's issue; and ended by asking the Editor to tea.
He went home more conscious than ever of being a man of influence and
work.
So even the paper which you and I, O reader, habitually dislike and
ignore, came over to the side of light.
The great organs of the Press, with amazing unanimity, rolled their
machines, blew trumpets, and beat drums, in the interests of Fairy
Reform. It was no sudden affair, that splendid combination; but a
gradual all-round awakening to the benefit, delight, and need of
preaching the causes of Elfdom.
The sober weeklies followed with such assumption of authority that they
seemed to think they were leading. They had no hesitancy. The
monthlies and quarterlies also, in due time, continued the chorus. It
took about four months to bring this trend of influence to perfection,
but then the cause went on like a tidal wave.
Oberon and Titania, strangely unconscious of the new-won rage for fairy
goodness, became social factors; they left the select preserve of the
Folklorists to become magazine favourites, the darlings of Fashion, high
and low.
But this is very like anticipation, that bugbear of the sober historian,
so we return to the present, as it was.
Emmanuel Oldstein found the keeping of his ideals a hard business. His
midnight enthusiasm had strangely waned by the time of the milkman's
chant.
The breakfast-table on the morrow morn was very like a battlefield;
there were storms in five tea-cups. His family opposed his good
intentions with earnestness, broken English, and some quotation of the
Pentateuch, and thereby through the rule of contrariness, kept him to
his purpose. Their obstinacy strengthened his. He stuck gamely to his
guns, and began his course at once by doubling Ernie Jenkins' wages,
enabling that young patriot to enlarge his indulgence in bitter beer, to
wear three clean collars a week, and to promise Emily--with a few
safeguarding "ifs"--that some day she might be "Mrs. J."
Emmanuel's family yielded to his wishes when he bought them over. He
gave Mrs. Oldstein a purple silk dress trimmed with jet, a big bangle,
and a gold watch so small that its works could never move. Max, who
presumed to strange heights of impudent sarcasm on the subject of "the
guvnor's flum," was given a minor partnership in the emporium, provided
he was not merely just, but generous, in all his dealings.
He quickly agreed, and became a pompous person, forgetful of old
associates.
Keeping the resolutions was certainly a hard and bitter business to the
old man; but it did him good. He never lost sight of the promise of tea
with the Archdeacon.
The hardest effort came when those pious folk next door took the bait,
and approached Jabez Gordon of Jermyn Street for a loan--"to extend
their efforts for the Cause."
Emmanuel unwisely informed Hannah of the fact. Her eyes blazed with
angry happiness. At last! At last!
"Now squelch 'em, Pa!" she pleaded, in her commanding manner.
"Thertainly, my dear!" he said evasively; and hurriedly put on his hat
to commune with himself in a walk round the squares. Here was a pass!
The undying remembrance of persecution, endured through ages by his
people, flamed within him. Years of petty trading and the practices of
sharp finance had not entirely subdued his inherited racial fire. And
of all the Anti-Semite persecutors, none were so exasperating as those
infatuated, contemptible sentimentalists--the pin-prick fanatics--who
hoped to "convert" him, asking him to exchange the breadths of his own
faith, based on centuries of national sacrifice and fighting history,
for their traditionless, unimaginative, sapless sectarianism. It was a
hard effort to spare those people at that moment of possible revenge.
Shylock had his twentieth-century opportunity.
When Emmanuel reached home again he was still undecided. An ancient
battle was furious in his breast. He slept that night with a pile of
the offensive mission notices beside his pillow, and turned and dreamed
in a troubled way, murmuring Yiddish.
During breakfast he came to a decision, which he kept to himself.
"Father, I am glad you can punish them," said Hannah significantly, as
she helped him with his outer coat. That was the only remark passed on
the subject. Wisely, he held his peace.
He wrote from his office of finance in Jermyn Street--at first view you
would think it a place of sale for strong cigars and strange red
wines--to the sanctimonious young man, inviting Mr. Lemuel Buskin Junior
to call upon Jabez Gordon "to complete the little matter of business
about which Mr. Lemuel Buskin Junior had written."
Then Oldstein went on to the City, and got from Max a list of the
workers--the sweated workers--who gave their lives to the making of his
wealth. He would visit them all, and investigate their condition, doing
whatever he could--be it little or much--to modify their wants and
sufferings. The last on that list of mean, poor ones, was Sally Wilkins
of Paradise Court. Already he had arranged or made purposes to pay every
one of his employees a living wage, whatever the result might be in the
increase of prices and consequent possible loss of customers. It was a
bold policy. To Emmanuel Oldstein, even still more to Max, it was very
like inexcusable sin. To pay more than need be for anything was to
blaspheme against the gods of Economics. But he insisted on doing it,
and did it. To anticipate for the last time, the policy paid.
Emmanuel's blood was up. He kept his written resolutions before him
wherever he went. They and the menu reminded him of the Lord Mayor's
appeal, of his own pledges, of his hopes of civic advancement, of the
Archdeacon's invitation to tea. Again that night a battle raged in his
breast. Hannah kept watchful eyes upon him.
On the following morning money-lender and victim emerged from their
front-doors simultaneously. Neither appeared to notice the
other--according to the canons of the unwritten law which rules the
no-relation of next-door neighbours. None so far away as at the other
side of a party wall!
The heir of the Buskins was less beautiful than good. His nose was the
index to his mind. It pointed heavenwards. His thoughts were built of
texts and depression. He had a saddened soul, but was never bankrupt of
pious hope. He yearned that sinners should walk with him on the pearly
pathways, and knew the naughty when he met them. So, in any case, it
was not to be expected he should notice Oldstein, who in every respect
offended and roused his religious antipathies. Lemuel was one of those
whose thoughts reach the heights of the chimney-pots; they soar, yet are
smothered with smuts.
Emmanuel noticed him. The Jew's keen eyes with a glance read the story
told by the other's clothes. Lemuel was in blacks--his Sunday best. The
coat had a tail; the hat was silken. He carried brown gloves and his
mother's umbrella nicely rolled. His little sleek yellow moustache had
upward twists; the whiskerettes which roused Hannah's ire and contempt
were carefully trimmed. He wore a tartan necktie--to gratify that
Scotsman, Jabez Gordon.
Oldstein grunted--there was joy in his nose--as they climbed into an
omnibus together. The merchant took out his notebook and soon was
controlling figures, while Lemuel stared at the advertisements or table
of fares, stroked the careful crease in his trousers, and nervously
fingered the points of his collar.
The omnibus stopped at Piccadilly Circus; they alighted. Lemuel had to
ask the way to Jermyn Street; Oldstein knew it, and was soon in his
office eagerly attacking a pile of letters. Five minutes later his one
clerk--a magnificent creature whose greatest asset was a capacity for
being stylish on very little--brought in Buskin's name.
"He must wait," said the master gruffly, "while I dictate letters.
Hurry!"
He solemnly put the pile of mission notices on the desk before him, and
closely attended to his correspondence.
Lemuel was waiting with the pitiful patience of a deserted lamb. His
little heart was excitedly fluttering. He felt strangely fearful. He
was not used to business. He would have given sixpence to have seen
himself in a looking-glass, to be sure his hair was tidy, his tie
straight. He eyed the dingy furniture of the stuffy room, and felt his
courage going. He had expected to see more adornment than this; but he
had read that the truly wealthy make the least display.
He fixed his gaze steadily on the door through which the clerk had gone,
regarding it with mingled dread and longing. "Lasciate ogni speranza,
voi ch' entrate" might well have been written above it.
Twenty minutes passed--Father Time, to spite his impatience, grossly
enlarged every one of the twelve hundred seconds--before the splendid
clerk reopened the door, ostentatiously closed an untidy shorthand book,
and said: "Will ye go in?"
Lemuel Buskin rose trembling. His knees seemed to have forgotten their
strength. But he remembered his mother's counsel, plucked up courage,
and repeated mentally the stimulating chorus of a hymn. He was, as he
entered the private office and took the offered seat, in such a whirl of
confusion that he did not at once recognize the person of the financier.
Suddenly he was aware of Oldstein's identity, and blushed hotly.
"I ca-came to see Mr. Gordon!"
"I am Mithter Gordon!"
"Ja-Jabez Gordon?"
"Jabez Gordon! and you are Mithter Buthkin."
"But you--I--oh!"
"Exthactly! Oh! ith jutht the word. Mithter Buthkin, I'm glad to thee
you. We're old acquaintanthes, we are, although you may not know it!
You ask my daughter 'Annah 'ow much indebted to you we feel. My 'Annah
lookth on you ath a brother, a Christian brother. Thee them
billth?"--Emmanuel slapped the pile of mission notices with a dingy
hand. Lemuel's last shadow of pluck was evaporating fast; but Oldstein
with the question challenged his fanaticism.
"I'm proud to be a labourer in the vineyard!" was the surly defiant
reply.
"And well may be! But you're an unthkilled labourer, Mr. Buthkin. Now
I'm glad you've called, for I want to talk to you; you're goin' to
listen and then we may do bithness."
Lemuel, surprised and unprepared, was cowed by Oldstein's decision and
speech. He had bitterness on his tongue, but refrained from any retort.
"Do you believe in the fairieth, Mithter Buthkin?" was the unexpected
question.
Lemuel could only stare and wonder.
"Answer me!"
"Certainly I do not!"
"That'th a pity. I do."
"I believe in higher things."
"And do you live up to them?"
Lemuel gasped.
"I didn't come here to be insulted."
"No, Mithter Buthkin, and I don't go 'ome to be inthulted with them
things--do you recognithe 'em?--in my letter-box. Who put 'em there?
Look at 'em well! You did. Why? Because you're a tuppenny little
thkunk--I leave your parenth out of it, for they're too old to know
better; they're past mendin'--you're a little tuppenny thkunk who
prethumes to think that your belief ith the whole and only truth, and
that my belief--which my fathers and their fathers 'eld for thouthandth
on thouthandth of yearth, long before London wath more than a puddle,
ith--I don't know what you think it ith. You can't compre'end it,
Mithter Buthkin, no, you can't!"
The old man paused and watched his victim keenly. He then burst out
with speech of passion.
"You to convert uth! You to wish to make uth such Christians as
yourselves--nuisances in the street--thingin', blarin', thpeakin'
uncharitably of our neighbourth! To convert uth! Father Abraham! I'd
rather be a persecuted Jew, stoned, starved, beaten, 'ated--as we have
been 'ated, starved and stoned for thousandth of yearth--than such a
Christian! Even if I 'ad to be a damned thoul burnin', rottin',
stinkin' in Gehenna for ever afterwardth, I would not be such a
Christian! Thit down, Mithter Buthkin!"
Lemuel hesitated, but obeyed. He hated and feared this old man of
anger, whose voice had become powerful with passion. Somehow the
armoury of texts seemed insufficient.
"I athked you jutht now if you believed in the fairieth, and you thaid
'No.' Well, I do believe in 'em, and it ith well for you I do. I meant
to punish you for worryin' us with them billth. I meant to crush you,
to end you. There'th nothin' tho easy in bithness life ath for a
finanthier to crush a poor man, if 'e likes. I meant to crush you and
your people because of your cruelty to uth. I'd 'ave lent you moneys at
such a rate of interest, on such artful terms, that you couldn't 'ave
paid it back; and I'd 'ave bought you up and broke you, body and soul.
But the other night I wath dinin' at the Mansion 'Ouse with the Right
Honourable the Lord Mayor and my friend the Venerable Reverend
Archdeacon Pryde, who's athked me to tea with him. You read what
appeared in the papers, 'aven't you? Everyone there made resolutions,
and, like the others, I made promises, which I'm goin' to keep. Lucky
for you, Mr. Buthkin, that I did. Now I'll begin by makin' you a
prethent. I give you back them billth. Here they are. What common
paper you do use for 'em! I could put you in the way of buying much
better quality at the price you pay, I bet! Burn 'em! Take 'em 'ome
and burn 'em! And now, if you like, we'll talk bithness. Mithter
Buthkin, I was glad you wrote to me. Ha, ha!" His laugh was not
musical. "You must 'ave been agreeably surprithed when you found Jabez
Gordon was me! 'Annah would laugh, too, if I were to tell 'er 'ow you
looked. But bithness now!"
Lemuel, who had just been feeling limp, made an effort to rouse himself.
The genial note in Oldstein's voice was to him as balm in Gilead.
"You want a 'undred poundth--to thpread the cause, ath you call it.
Well, I ain't goin' to lend you money to thpread any cause, but I'll be
better than my bond: I'll lend you a 'undred at 10 per thent--50 per
thent. would be low enough, too low for such rotten thecurity ath you
can give--on condition that you pay your family's debts with it. I know
about 'em, Mithter Buthkin; E. Oldstein's a knowing one. Also, that not
one 'alfpenny of it goes to convertin' anybody. I've never made such an
offer ath this before, and if any man 'ad told me a year ago I'd do it,
I'd 'ave called 'im somethin'. You can thank the fairieth for it. But
that ain't all! I'll give you ten pound at once--'ere they are, nice
fat yellow boys, ain't they?--to buy food and clothin' for poor
Christians--Christians, mind!--who need it. I'll trutht you to
dithtribute the moneys honestly. Put 'em away carefully, Mithter
Buthkin. To-night you can come to my 'ouse--it's next door to
yours--number forty-eight, and fetch the loan and sign the document.
Jutht realithe thith, Mithter Buthkin, I'm treatin' you wonderfully
well--the fairieth 'ave made me do it!--but, mind my words, put another
paper of any kind into my letter-box, or let me find you even printin' a
bill about the Conversion of the Jewth--and fairieth or no
fairieth--I'll crush you!"
Oldstein sat down exhausted. He took a strong cigar out of a drawer,
cut and lighted it with quivering fingers.
Lemuel's mind was in a riot of confusion. Qualms of conscience, of
gratitude, of fear swept through him. He rose mechanically, picked up
and pocketed the ten sovereigns, and feebly squeezed Oldstein's
proffered hand.
"Do you thmoke, Mr. Buthkin?" asked Emmanuel.
"No!"
"Does your Dad thmoke?"
"No!"
"That'th a great pity. So good for the 'eart! If you wanted to buy
thome cigarth at any time, real 'Avanah, I could get you a 'undred--good
uns, mind; strong, with a flavour--for a very low price. Well, theven
o'clock to-night! 'Annah will be pleased to see you!"