Raphael looked at her. Her expression was abstracted, her eyes had an

inward look. He hoped her headache had not got worse. She did not look

at all pretty now. She seemed a frail little creature with a sad

thoughtful face and an air of being alone in the midst of a merry

company. Poor little thing! He felt as if he had known her for years.

She seemed curiously out of harmony with all these people. He doubted

even his own capacity to commune with her inmost soul. He wished he

could be of service to her, could do anything for her that might lighten

her gloom and turn her morbid thoughts in healthier directions.

The butler brought in some claret negus. It was the break-up signal.

Raphael drank his negus with a pleasant sense of arming himself against

the cold air. He wanted to walk home smoking his pipe, which he always

carried in his overcoat. He clasped Esther's hand with a cordial smile

of farewell.

"We shall meet again soon, I trust," he said.

"I hope so," said Esther; "put me down as a subscriber to that paper."

"Thank you," he said; "I won't forget."

"What's that?" said Sidney, pricking up his ears; "doubled your

circulation already?"

Sidney put his cousin Addie into a hansom, as she did not care to walk,

and got in beside her.

"My feet are tired," she said; "I danced a lot last night, and was out a

lot this afternoon. It's all very well for Raphael, who doesn't know

whether he's walking on his head or his heels. Here, put your collar up,

Raphael, not like that, it's all crumpled. Haven't you got a

handkerchief to put round your throat? Where's that one I gave you? Lend

him yours, Sidney."

"You don't mind if _I_ catch my death of cold; I've got to go on a

Christmas dance when I deposit you on your doorstep," grumbled Sidney.

"Catch! There, you duffer! It's gone into the mud. Sure you won't jump

in? Plenty of room. Addie can sit on my knee. Well, ta, ta! Merry

Christmas."

Raphael lit his pipe and strode off with long ungainly strides. It was a

clear frosty night, and the moonlight glistened on the silent spaces of

street and square.

"Go to bed, my dear," said Mrs. Goldsmith, returning to the lounge where

Esther still sat brooding. "You look quite worn out."

Left alone, Mrs. Goldsmith smiled pleasantly at Mr. Goldsmith, who,

uncertain of how he had behaved himself, always waited anxiously for the

verdict. He was pleased to find it was "not guilty" this time.

"I think that went off very well," she said. She was looking very lovely

to-night, the low bodice emphasizing the voluptuous outlines of the

bust.

"Splendidly," he returned. He stood with his coat-tails to the fire, his

coarse-grained face beaming like an extra lamp. "The people and those

croquettes were A1. The way Mary's picked up French cookery is

wonderful."

"Yes, especially considering she denies herself butter. But I'm not

thinking of that nor of our guests." He looked at her wonderingly.

"Henry," she continued impressively, "how would you like to get into

Parliament?"

"Eh, Parliament? Me?" he stammered.

"Yes, why not? I've always had it in my eye."

His face grew gloomy. "It is not practicable," he said, shaking the head

with the prominent teeth and ears.

"Not practicable?" she echoed sharply. "Just think of what you've

achieved already, and don't tell me you're going to stop now. Not

practicable, indeed! Why, that's the very word you used years ago in the

provinces when I said you ought to be President. You said old

Winkelstein had been in the position too long to be ousted. And yet I

felt certain your superior English would tell in the long run in such a

miserable congregation of foreigners, and when Winkelstein had made that

delicious blunder about the 'university' of the Exodus instead of the

'anniversary,' and I went about laughing over it in all the best

circles, the poor man's day was over. And when we came to London, and

seemed to fall again to the bottom of the ladder because our greatness

was swallowed up in the vastness, didn't you despair then? Didn't you

tell me that we should never rise to the surface?"

"It didn't seem probable, did it?" he murmured in self-defence.

"Of course not. That's just my point. Your getting into the House of

Commons doesn't seem probable now. But in those days your getting merely

to know M.P.'s was equally improbable. The synagogal dignities were all

filled up by old hands, there was no way of getting on the Council and

meeting our magnates."

"Yes, but your solution of that difficulty won't do here. I had not much

difficulty in persuading the United Synagogue that a new synagogue was a

crying want in Kensington, but I could hardly persuade the government

that a new constituency is a crying want in London." He spoke pettishly;

his ambition always required rousing and was easily daunted.

"No, but somebody's going to start a new something else, Henry," said

Mrs. Goldsmith with enigmatic cheerfulness. "Trust in me; think of what

we have done in less than a dozen years at comparatively trifling costs,

thanks to that happy idea of a new synagogue--you the representative of

the Kensington synagogue, with a 'Sir' for a colleague and a

congregation that from exceptionally small beginnings has sprung up to

be the most fashionable in London; likewise a member of the Council of

the Anglo-Jewish Association and an honorary officer of the _Shechitah_

Board; I, connected with several first-class charities, on the Committee

of our leading school, and the acknowledged discoverer of a girl who

gives promise of doing something notable in literature or music. We have

a reputation for wealth, culture and hospitality, and it is quite two

years since we shook off the last of the Maida Vale lot, who are so

graphically painted in that novel of Mr. Armitage's. Who are our guests

now? Take to-night's! A celebrated artist, a brilliant young Oxford man,

both scions of the same wealthy and well-considered family, an

authoress of repute who dedicates her books (by permission) to the very

first families of the community; and lastly the Montagu Samuels with the

brother, Percy Saville, who both go only to the best houses. Is there

any other house, where the company is so exclusively Jewish, that could

boast of a better gathering?"

"I don't say anything against the company," said her husband awkwardly,

"it's better than we got in the Provinces. But your company isn't your

constituency. What constituency would have me?"

"Certainly, no ordinary constituency would have you," admitted his wife

frankly. "I am thinking of Whitechapel."

"But Gideon represents Whitechapel."

"Certainly; as Sidney Graham says, he represents it very well. But he

has made himself unpopular, his name has appeared in print as a guest at

City banquets, where the food can't be _kosher_. He has alienated a

goodly proportion of the Jewish vote."

"Well?" said Mr. Goldsmith, still wonderingly.

"Now is the time to bid for his shoes. Raphael Leon is about to

establish a new Jewish paper. I was mistaken about that young man. You

remember my telling you I had heard he was eccentric and despite his

brilliant career a little touched on religious matters. I naturally

supposed his case was like that of one or two other Jewish young men we

know and that he yearned for spirituality, and his remarks at table

rather confirmed the impression. But he is worse than that--and I nearly

put my foot in it--his craziness is on the score of orthodoxy! Fancy

that! A man who has been to Harrow and Oxford longing for a gaberdine

and side curls! Well, well, live and learn. What a sad trial for his

parents!" She paused, musing.

"But, Rosetta, what has Raphael Leon to do with my getting into

Parliament?"

"Don't be stupid, Henry. Haven't I explained to you that Leon is going

to start an orthodox paper which will be circulated among your future

constituents. It's extremely fortunate that we have always kept our

religion. We have a widespread reputation for orthodoxy. We are friends

with Leon, and we can get Esther to write for the paper (I could see he

was rather struck by her). Through this paper we can keep you and your

orthodoxy constantly before the constituency. The poor people are quite

fascinated by the idea of rich Jews like us keeping a strictly _kosher_

table; but the image of a Member of Parliament with phylacteries on his

forehead will simply intoxicate them." She smiled, herself, at the

image; the smile that always intoxicated Percy Saville.

"You're a wonderful woman, Rosetta," said Henry, smiling in response

with admiring affection and making his incisors more prominent. He drew

her head down to him and kissed her lips. She returned his kiss

lingeringly and they had a flash of that happiness which is born of

mutual fidelity and trust.

"Can I do anything for you, mum, afore I go to bed?" said stout old Mary

O'Reilly, appearing at the door. Mary was a privileged person,

unappalled even by the butler. Having no relatives, she never took a

holiday and never went out except to Chapel.

"No, Mary, thank you. The dinner was excellent. Good night and merry

Christmas."

"Same to you, mum," and as the unconscious instrument of Henry

Goldsmith's candidature turned away, the Christmas bells broke merrily

upon the night. The peals fell upon the ears of Raphael Leon, still

striding along, casting a gaunt shadow on the hoar-frosted pavement, but

he marked them not; upon Addie sitting by her bedroom mirror thinking of

Sidney speeding to the Christmas dance; upon Esther turning restlessly

on the luxurious eider-down, oppressed by panoramic pictures of the

martyrdom of her race. Lying between sleep and waking, especially when

her brain had been excited, she had the faculty of seeing wonderful

vivid visions, indistinguishable from realities. The martyrs who mounted

the scaffold and the stake all had the face of Raphael.

"The mission of Israel" buzzed through her brain. Oh, the irony of

history! Here was another life going to be wasted on an illusory dream.

The figures of Raphael and her father suddenly came into grotesque

juxtaposition. A bitter smile passed across her face.

The Christmas bells rang on, proclaiming Peace in the name of Him who

came to bring a sword into the world.

"Surely," she thought, "the people of Christ has been the Christ of

peoples."

And then she sobbed meaninglessly in the darkness

CHAPTER III.

"THE FLAG OF JUDAH."

The call to edit the new Jewish paper seemed to Raphael the voice of

Providence. It came just when he was hesitating about his future,

divided between the attractions of the ministry, pure Hebrew scholarship

and philanthropy. The idea of a paper destroyed these conflicting claims

by comprehending them all. A paper would be at once a pulpit, a medium

for organizing effective human service, and an incentive to serious

study in the preparation of scholarly articles.

The paper was to be the property of the Co-operative Kosher Society, an

association originally founded to supply unimpeachable Passover cakes.

It was suspected by the pious that there was a taint of heresy in the

flour used by the ordinary bakers, and it was remarked that the

Rabbinate itself imported its _Matzoth_ from abroad. Successful in its

first object, the Co-operative Kosher Society extended its operations to

more perennial commodities, and sought to save Judaism from dubious

cheese and butter, as well as to provide public baths for women in

accordance with the precepts of Leviticus. But these ideals were not so

easy to achieve, and so gradually the idea of a paper to preach them to

a godless age formed itself. The members of the Society met in Aaron

Schlesinger's back office to consider them. Schlesinger was a cigar

merchant, and the discussions of the Society were invariably obscured by

gratuitous smoke Schlesinger's junior partner, Lewis De Haan, who also

had a separate business as a surveyor, was the soul of the Society, and

talked a great deal. He was a stalwart old man, with a fine imagination

and figure, boundless optimism, a big biceps, a long venerable white

beard, a keen sense of humor, and a versatility which enabled him to

turn from the price of real estate to the elucidation of a Talmudical

difficulty, and from the consignment of cigars to the organization of

apostolic movements. Among the leading spirits were our old friends,

Karlkammer the red-haired zealot, Sugarman the _Shadchan_, and Guedalyah

the greengrocer, together with Gradkoski the scholar, fancy goods

merchant and man of the world. A furniture-dealer, who was always

failing, was also an important personage, while Ebenezer Sugarman, a

young man who had once translated a romance from the Dutch, acted as

secretary. Melchitsedek Pinchas invariably turned up at the meetings and

smoked Schlesinger's cigars. He was not a member; he had not qualified

himself by taking ten pound shares (far from fully paid up), but nobody

liked to eject him, and no hint less strong than a physical would have

moved the poet.

All the members of the Council of the Co-operative Kosher Society spoke

English volubly and more or less grammatically, but none had sufficient

confidence in the others to propose one of them for editor, though it is

possible that none would have shrunk from having a shot. Diffidence is

not a mark of the Jew. The claims of Ebenezer Sugarman and of

Melchitsedek Pinchas were put forth most vehemently by Ebenezer and

Melchitsedek respectively, and their mutual accusations of incompetence

enlivened Mr. Schlesinger's back office.

"He ain't able to spell the commonest English words," said Ebenezer,

with a contemptuous guffaw that sounded like the croak of a raven.

The young littérateur, the sumptuousness of whose _Barmitzvah_-party was

still a memory with his father, had lank black hair, with a long nose

that supported blue spectacles.

"What does he know of the Holy Tongue?" croaked Melchitsedek

witheringly, adding in a confidential whisper to the cigar merchant: "I

and you, Schlesinger, are the only two men in England who can write the

Holy Tongue grammatically."

The little poet was as insinutive and volcanic (by turns) as ever. His

beard was, however, better trimmed and his complexion healthier, and he

looked younger than ten years ago. His clothes were quite spruce. For

several years he had travelled about the Continent, mainly at Raphael's

expense. He said his ideas came better in touring and at a distance from

the unappreciative English Jewry. It was a pity, for with his linguistic

genius his English would have been immaculate by this time. As it was,

there was a considerable improvement in his writing, if not so much in

his accent.

"What do I know of the Holy Tongue!" repeated Ebenezer scornfully. "Hold

yours!"

The Committee laughed, but Schlesinger, who was a serious man, said,

"Business, gentlemen, business."

"Come, then! I'll challenge you to translate a page of _Metatoron's

Flames_," said Pinchas, skipping about the office like a sprightly flea.

"You know no more than the Reverend Joseph Strelitski vith his vite tie

and his princely income."

De Haan seized the poet by the collar, swung him off his feet and tucked

him up in the coal-scuttle.

"Yah!" croaked Ebenezer. "Here's a fine editor. Ho! Ho! Ho!"

"We cannot have either of them. It's the only way to keep them quiet,"

said the furniture-dealer who was always failing.

Ebenezer's face fell and his voice rose.

"I don't see why I should be sacrificed to _'im_. There ain't a man in

England who can write English better than me. Why, everybody says so.

Look at the success of my book, _The Old Burgomaster_, the best Dutch

novel ever written. The _St. Pancras Press_ said it reminded them of

Lord Lytton, it did indeed. I can show you the paper. I can give you one

each if you like. And then it ain't as if I didn't know 'Ebrew, too.

Even if I was in doubt about anything, I could always go to my father.

You give me this paper to manage and I'll make your fortunes for you in

a twelvemonth; I will as sure as I stand here."

Pinchas had made spluttering interruptions as frequently as he could in

resistance of De Haan's brawny, hairy hand which was pressed against his

nose and mouth to keep him down in the coal-scuttle, but now he exploded

with a force that shook off the hand like a bottle of soda water

expelling its cork.

"You Man-of-the-Earth," he cried, sitting up in the coal-scuttle. "You

are not even orthodox. Here, my dear gentlemen, is the very position

created by Heaven for me--in this disgraceful country where genius

starves. Here at last you have the opportunity of covering yourselves

vid eternal glory. Have I not given you the idea of starting this paper?

And vas I not born to be a Rédacteur, a Editor, as you call it? Into the

paper I vill pour all the fires of my song--"

"Yes, burn it up," croaked Ebenezer.

"I vill lead the Freethinkers and the Reformers back into the fold. I

vill be Elijah and my vings shall be quill pens. I vill save Judaism."

He started up, swelling, but De Haan caught him by his waistcoat and

readjusted him in the coal-scuttle.

"Here, take another cigar, Pinchas," he said, passing Schlesinger's

private box, as if with a twinge of remorse for his treatment of one he

admired as a poet though he could not take him seriously as a man.

The discussion proceeded; the furniture-dealer's counsel was followed;

it was definitely decided to let the two candidates neutralize each

other.

"Vat vill you give me, if I find you a Rédacteur?" suddenly asked

Pinchas. "I give up my editorial seat--"

"Editorial coal-scuttle," growled Ebenezer.

"Pooh! I find you a first-class Rédacteur who vill not want a big

salary; perhaps he vill do it for nothing. How much commission vill you

give me?"

"Ten shillings on every pound if he does not want a big salary," said De

Haan instantly, "and twelve and sixpence on every pound if he does it

for nothing."

And Pinchas, who was easily bamboozled when finance became complex, went

out to find Raphael.

Thus at the next meeting the poet produced Raphael in triumph, and

Gradkoski, who loved a reputation for sagacity, turned a little green

with disgust at his own forgetfulness. Gradkoski was among those

founders of the Holy Land League with whom Raphael had kept up

relations, and he could not deny that the young enthusiast was the ideal

man for the post. De Haan, who was busy directing the clerks to write

out ten thousand wrappers for the first number, and who had never heard

of Raphael before, held a whispered confabulation with Gradkoski and

Schlesinger and in a few moments Raphael was rescued from obscurity and

appointed to the editorship of the _Flag of Judah_ at a salary of

nothing a year. De Haan immediately conceived a vast contemptuous

admiration of the man.

"You von't forget me," whispered Pinchas, buttonholing the editor at the

first opportunity, and placing his forefinger insinuatingly alongside

his nose. "You vill remember that I expect a commission on your salary."

Raphael smiled good-naturedly and, turning to De Haan, said: "But do you

think there is any hope of a circulation?"

"A circulation, sir, a circulation!" repeated De Haan. "Why, we shall

not be able to print fast enough. There are seventy-thousand orthodox

Jews in London alone."

"And besides," added Gradkoski, in a corroboration strongly like a

contradiction, "we shall not have to rely on the circulation. Newspapers

depend on their advertisements."

"Do they?" said Raphael, helplessly.

"Of course," said Gradkoski with his air of worldly wisdom, "And don't

you see, being a religious paper we are bound to get all the communal

advertisements. Why, we get the Co-operative Kosher Society to start

with."

"Yes, but we ain't: going to pay for that,"' said Sugarman the

_Shadchan_.

"That doesn't matter," said De Haan. "It'll look well--we can fill up a

whole page with it. You know what Jews are--they won't ask 'is this

paper wanted?' they'll balance it in their hand, as if weighing up the

value of the advertisements, and ask 'does it pay?' But it _will_ pay,

it must pay; with you at the head of it, Mr. Leon, a man whose fame and

piety are known and respected wherever a _Mezuzah_ adorns a door-post,

a man who is in sympathy with the East End, and has the ear of the West,

a man who will preach the purest Judaism in the best English, with such

a man at the head of it, we shall be able to ask bigger prices for

advertisements than the existing Jewish papers."

Raphael left the office in a transport of enthusiasm, full of Messianic

emotions. At the next meeting he announced that he was afraid he could

not undertake the charge of the paper. Amid universal consternation,

tempered by the exultation of Ebenezer, he explained that he had been

thinking it over and did not see how it could be done. He said he had

been carefully studying the existing communal organs, and saw that they

dealt with many matters of which he knew nothing; whilst he might be

competent to form the taste of the community in religious and literary

matters, it appeared that the community was chiefly excited about

elections and charities. "Moreover," said he, "I noticed that it is

expected of these papers to publish obituaries of communal celebrities,

for whose biographies no adequate materials are anywhere extant. It

would scarcely be decent to obtrude upon the sacred grief of the

bereaved relatives with a request for particulars."

"Oh, that's all right," laughed De Haan. "I'm sure _my_ wife would be

glad to give you any information."

"Of course, of course," said Gradkoski, soothingly. "You will get the

obituaries sent in of themselves by the relatives."

Raphael's brow expressed surprise and incredulity.

"And besides, we are not going to crack up the same people as the other

papers," said De Haan; "otherwise we should not supply a want. We must

dole out our praise and blame quite differently, and we must be very

scrupulous to give only a little praise so that it shall be valued the

more." He stroked his white, beard tranquilly.

"But how about meetings?" urged Raphael. "I find that sometimes two take

place at once. I can go to one, but I can't be at both."

"Oh, that will be all right," said De Haan airily. "We will leave out

one and people will think it is unimportant. We are bringing out a

paper for our own ends, not to report the speeches of busybodies."

Raphael was already exhibiting a conscientiousness which must be nipped

in the bud. Seeing him silenced, Ebenezer burst forth anxiously:

"But Mr. Leon is right. There must be a sub-editor."

"Certainly there must be a sub-editor," cried Pinchas eagerly.

"Very well, then," said De Haan, struck with a sudden thought. "It is

true Mr. Leon cannot do all the work. I know a young fellow who'll be

just the very thing. He'll come for a pound a week."

"But I'll come for a pound a week," said Ebenezer.

"Yes, but you won't get it," said Schlesinger impatiently.

"_Sha_, Ebenezer," said old Sugarman imperiously.

De Haan thereupon hunted up a young gentleman, who dwelt in his mind as

"Little Sampson," and straightway secured him at the price named. He was

a lively young Bohemian born in Australia, who had served an

apprenticeship on the Anglo-Jewish press, worked his way up into the

larger journalistic world without, and was now engaged in organizing a

comic-opera touring company, and in drifting back again into Jewish

journalism. This young gentleman, who always wore long curling locks, an

eye-glass and a romantic cloak which covered a multitude of

shabbinesses, fully allayed Raphael's fears as to the difficulties of

editorship.

"Obituaries!" he said scornfully. "You rely on me for that! The people

who are worth chronicling are sure to have lived in the back numbers of

our contemporaries, and I can always hunt them up in the Museum. As for

the people who are not, their families will send them in, and your only

trouble will be to conciliate the families of those you ignore."

"But about all those meetings?" said Raphael.

"I'll go to some," said the sub-editor good-naturedly, "whenever they

don't interfere with the rehearsals of my opera. You know of course I am

bringing out a comic-opera, composed by myself, some lovely tunes in it;

one goes like this: Ta ra ra ta, ta dee dum dee--that'll knock 'em.

Well, as I was saying, I'll help you as much as I can find time for.

You rely on me for that."

"Yes," said poor Raphael with a sickly smile, "but suppose neither of us

goes to some important meeting."

"No harm done. God bless you, I know the styles of all our chief

speakers--ahem--ha!--pauperization of the East End, ha!--I would

emphatically say that this scheme--ahem!--his lordship's untiring zeal

for hum!--the welfare of--and so on. Ta dee dum da, ta, ra, rum dee.

They always send on the agenda beforehand. That's all I want, and I'll

lay you twenty to one I'll turn out as good a report as any of our

rivals. You rely on me for _that_! I know exactly how debates go. At the

worst I can always swop with another reporter--a prize distribution for

an obituary, or a funeral for a concert."

"And do you really think we two between us can fill up the paper every

week?" said Raphael doubtfully.

Little Sampson broke into a shriek of laughter, dropped his eyeglass and

collapsed helplessly into the coal-scuttle. The Committeemen looked up

from their confabulations in astonishment.

"Fill up the paper! Ho! Ho! Ho!" roared little Sampson, still doubled

up. "Evidently _you've_ never had anything to do with papers. Why, the

reports of London and provincial sermons alone would fill three papers a

week."

"Yes, but how are we to get these reports, especially from the

provinces?"

"How? Ho! Ho! Ho!" And for some time little Sampson was physically

incapable of speech. "Don't you know," he gasped, "that the ministers

always send up their own sermons, pages upon pages of foolscap?"

"Indeed?" murmured Raphael.

"What, haven't you noticed all Jewish sermons are eloquent?".

"They write that themselves?"

"Of course; sometimes they put 'able,' and sometimes 'learned,' but, as

a rule, they prefer to be 'eloquent.' The run on that epithet is

tremendous. Ta dee dum da. In holiday seasons they are also very fond of

'enthralling the audience,' and of 'melting them to tears,' but this is

chiefly during the Ten Days of Repentance, or when a boy is

_Barmitzvah_. Then, think of the people who send in accounts of the

oranges they gave away to distressed widows, or of the prizes won by

their children at fourth-rate schools, or of the silver pointers they

present to the synagogue. Whenever a reader sends a letter to an evening

paper, he will want you to quote it; and, if he writes a paragraph in

the obscurest leaflet, he will want you to note it as 'Literary

Intelligence.' Why, my dear fellow, your chief task will be to cut down.

Ta, ra, ra, ta! Any Jewish paper could be entirely supported by

voluntary contributions--as, for the matter of that, could any newspaper

in the world." He got up and shook the coal-dust languidly from his

cloak.

"Besides, we shall all be helping you with articles," said De Haan,

encouragingly.

"Yes, we shall all be helping you," said Ebenezer.

"I vill give you from the Pierian spring--bucketsful," said Pinchas in a

flush of generosity.

"Thank you, I shall be much obliged," said Raphael, heartily, "for I

don't quite see the use of a paper filled up as Mr. Sampson suggests."

He flung his arms out and drew them in again. It was a way he had when

in earnest. "Then, I should like to have some foreign news. Where's that

to come from?"

"You rely on me for _that_," said little Sampson, cheerfully. "I will

write at once to all the chief Jewish papers in the world, French,

German, Dutch, Italian, Hebrew, and American, asking them to exchange

with us. There is never any dearth of foreign news. I translate a thing

from the Italian _Vessillo Israelitico_, and the _Israelitische

Nieuwsbode_ copies it from us; _Der Israelit_ then translates it into

German, whence it gets into Hebrew, in _Hamagid_, thence into _L'Univers

Israélite_, of Paris, and thence into the _American Hebrew_. When I see

it in American, not having to translate it, it strikes me as fresh, and

so I transfer it bodily to our columns, whence it gets translated into

Italian, and so the merry-go-round goes eternally on. Ta dee rum day.

You rely on me for your foreign news. Why, I can get you foreign

telegrams if you'll only allow me to stick 'Trieste, December 21,' or

things of that sort at the top. Ti, tum, tee ti." He went on humming a

sprightly air, then, suddenly interrupting himself, he said, "but have

you got an advertisement canvasser, Mr. De Haan?"

"No, not yet," said De Haan, turning around. The committee had resolved

itself into animated groups, dotted about the office, each group marked

by a smoke-drift. The clerks were still writing the ten thousand

wrappers, swearing inaudibly.

"Well, when are you going to get him?"

"Oh, we shall have advertisements rolling in of themselves," said De

Haan, with a magnificent sweep of the arm. "And we shall all assist in

that department! Help yourself to another cigar, Sampson." And he passed

Schlesinger's box. Raphael and Karlkammer were the only two men in the

room not smoking cigars--Raphael, because he preferred his pipe, and

Karlkammer for some more mystic reason.

"We must not ignore Cabalah," the zealot's voice was heard to observe.

"You can't get advertisements by Cabalah," drily interrupted Guedalyah,

the greengrocer, a practical man, as everybody knew.

"No, indeed," protested Sampson. "The advertisement canvasser is a more

important man than the editor."

Ebenezer pricked up his ears.

"I thought _you_ undertook to do some canvassing for your money," said

De Haan.

"So I will, so I will; rely on me for that. I shouldn't be surprised if

I get the capitalists who are backing up my opera to give you the

advertisements of the tour, and I'll do all I can in my spare time. But

I feel sure you'll want another man--only, you must pay him well and

give him a good commission. It'll pay best in the long run to have a

good man, there are so many seedy duffers about," said little Sampson,

drawing his faded cloak loftily around him. "You want an eloquent,

persuasive man, with a gift of the gab--"

"Didn't I tell you so?" interrupted Pinchas, putting his finger to his

nose. "I vill go to the advertisers and speak burning words to them. I

vill--"

"Garn! They'd kick you out!" croaked Ebenezer. "They'll only listen to

an Englishman." His coarse-featured face glistened with spite.

"My Ebenezer has a good appearance," said old Sugarman, "and his English

is fine, and dat is half de battle."

Schlesinger, appealed to, intimated that Ebenezer might try, but that

they could not well spare him any percentage at the start. After much

haggling, Ebenezer consented to waive his commission, if the committee

would consent to allow an original tale of his to appear in the paper.

The stipulation having been agreed to, he capered joyously about the

office and winked periodically at Pinchas from behind the battery of his

blue spectacles. The poet was, however, rapt in a discussion as to the

best printer. The Committee were for having Gluck, who had done odd jobs

for most of them, but Pinchas launched into a narrative of how, when he

edited a great organ in Buda-Pesth, he had effected vast economies by

starting a little printing-office of his own in connection with the

paper.

"You vill set up a little establishment," he said. "I vill manage it for

a few pounds a veek. Then I vill not only print your paper, I vill get

you large profits from extra printing. Vith a man of great business

talent at the head of it--"

De Haan made a threatening movement, and Pinchas edged away from the

proximity of the coal-scuttle.

"Gluck's our printer!" said De Haan peremptorily. "He has Hebrew type.

We shall want a lot of that. We must have a lot of Hebrew

quotations--not spell Hebrew words in English like the other papers. And

the Hebrew date must come before the English. The public must see at

once that our principles are superior. Besides, Gluck's a Jew, which

will save us from the danger of having any of the printing done on

Saturdays."

"But shan't we want a publisher?" asked Sampson.

"That's vat I say," cried Pinchas. "If I set up this office, I can be

your publisher too. Ve must do things business-like."

"Nonsense, nonsense! We are our own publishers," said De Haan. "Our

clerks will send out the invoices and the subscription copies, and an

extra office-boy can sell the papers across the counter."

Sampson smiled in his sleeve.

"All right. That will do--for the first number," he said cordially. "Ta

ra ra ta."

"Now then, Mr. Leon, everything is settled," said De Haan, stroking his

beard briskly. "I think I'll ask you to help us to draw up the posters.

We shall cover all London, sir, all London."

"But wouldn't that be wasting money?" said Raphael.

"Oh, we're going to do the thing properly. I don't believe in meanness."

"It'll be enough if we cover the East End," said Schlesinger, drily.

"Quite so. The East End _is_ London as far as we're concerned," said De

Haan readily.

Raphael took the pen and the paper which De Haan tendered him and wrote

_The Flag of Judah_, the title having been fixed at their first

interview.

"The only orthodox paper!" dictated De Haan. "Largest circulation of any

Jewish paper in the world!"

"No, how can we say that?" said Raphael, pausing.

"No, of course not," said De Haan. "I was thinking of the subsequent

posters. Look out for the first number--on Friday, January 1st. The best

Jewish writers! The truest Jewish teachings! Latest Jewish news and

finest Jewish stories. Every Friday. Twopence."

"Twopence?" echoed Raphael, looking up. "I thought you wanted to appeal

to the masses. I should say it must be a penny."

"It _will_ be a penny," said De Haan oracularly.

"We have thought it all over," interposed Gradkoski. "The first number

will be bought up out of curiosity, whether at a penny or at twopence.

The second will go almost as well, for people will be anxious to see how

it compares with the first. In that number we shall announce that owing

to the enormous success we have been able to reduce it to a penny;

meantime we make all the extra pennies."

"I see," said Raphael dubiously.

"We must have _Chochma_" said De Haan. "Our sages recommend that."

Raphael still had his doubts, but he had also a painful sense of his

lack of the "practical wisdom" recommended by the sages cited. He

thought these men were probably in the right. Even religion could not be

pushed on the masses without business methods, and so long as they were

in earnest about the doctrines to be preached, he could even feel a dim

admiration for their superior shrewdness in executing a task in which he

himself would have hopelessly broken down. Raphael's mind was large; and

larger by being conscious of its cloistral limitations. And the men were

in earnest; not even their most intimate friends could call this into

question.

"We are going to save London," De Haan put it in one of his dithyrambic

moments. "Orthodoxy has too long been voiceless, and yet it is

five-sixths of Judaea. A small minority has had all the say. We must

redress the balance. We must plead the cause of the People against the

Few."

Raphael's breast throbbed with similar hopes. His Messianic emotions

resurged. Sugarman's solicitous request that he should buy a Hamburg

Lottery Ticket scarcely penetrated his consciousness. Carrying the copy

of the poster, he accompanied De Haan to Gluck's. It was a small shop in

a back street with jargon-papers and hand-bills in the window and a

pervasive heavy oleaginous odor. A hand-press occupied the centre of the

interior, the back of which was partitioned of and marked "Private."

Gluck came forward, grinning welcome. He wore an unkempt beard and a

dusky apron.

"Can you undertake to print an eight-page paper?" inquired De Haan.

"If I can print at all, I can print anything," responded Gluck

reproachfully. "How many shall you want?"

"It's the orthodox paper we've been planning so long," said De Haan

evasively.

Gluck nodded his head.

"There are seventy thousand orthodox Jews in London alone," said De

Haan, with rotund enunciation. "So you see what you may have to print.

It'll be worth your while to do it extra cheap."

Gluck agreed readily, naming a low figure. After half an hour's

discussion it was reduced by ten per cent.

"Good-bye, then," said De Haan. "So let it stand. We shall start with a

thousand copies of the first number, but where we shall end, the Holy

One, blessed be He, alone knows. I will now leave you and the editor to

talk over the rest. To-day's Monday. We must have the first number out

by Friday week. Can you do that, Mr. Leon?"

"Oh, that will be ample," said Raphael, shooting out his arms.

He did not remain of that opinion. Never had he gone through such an

awful, anxious time, not even in his preparations for the stiffest

exams. He worked sixteen hours a day at the paper. The only evening he

allowed himself off was when he dined with Mrs. Henry Goldsmith and met

Esther. First numbers invariably take twice as long to produce as second

numbers, even in the best regulated establishments. All sorts of

mysterious sticks and leads, and fonts and forms, are found wanting at

the eleventh hour. As a substitute for gray hair-dye there is nothing in

the market to compete with the production of first numbers. But in

Gluck's establishment, these difficulties were multiplied by a hundred.

Gluck spent a great deal of time in going round the corner to get

something from a brother printer. It took an enormous time to get a

proof of any article out of Gluck.

"My men are so careful," Gluck explained. "They don't like to pass

anything till it's free from typos."

The men must have been highly disappointed, for the proofs were

invariably returned bristling with corrections and having a highly

hieroglyphic appearance. Then Gluck would go in and slang his men. He

kept them behind the partition painted "Private."

The fatal Friday drew nearer and nearer. By Thursday not a single page

had been made up. Still Gluck pointed out that there were only eight,

and the day was long. Raphael had not the least idea in the world how to

make up a paper, but about eleven little Sampson kindly strolled into

Gluck's, and explained to his editor his own method of pasting the

proofs on sheets of paper of the size of the pages. He even made up one

page himself to a blithe vocal accompaniment. When the busy composer and

acting-manager hurried off to conduct a rehearsal, Raphael expressed his

gratitude warmly. The hours flew; the paper evolved as by geologic

stages. As the fateful day wore on, Gluck was scarcely visible for a

moment. Raphael was left alone eating his heart out in the shop, and

solacing himself with huge whiffs of smoke. At immense intervals Gluck

appeared from behind the partition bearing a page or a galley slip. He

said his men could not be trusted to do their work unless he was

present. Raphael replied that he had not seen the compositors come

through the shop to get their dinners, and he hoped Gluck would not find

it necessary to cut off their meal-times. Gluck reassured him on this

point; he said his men were so loyal that they preferred to bring their

food with them rather than have the paper delayed. Later on he casually

mentioned that there was a back entrance. He would not allow Raphael to

talk to his workmen personally, arguing that it spoiled their

discipline. By eleven o'clock at night seven pages had been pulled and

corrected: but the eighth page was not forthcoming. The _Flag_ had to be

machined, dried, folded, and a number of copies put into wrappers and

posted by three in the morning. The situation looked desperate. At a

quarter to twelve, Gluck explained that a column of matter already set

up had been "pied" by a careless compositor. It happened to be the

column containing the latest news and Raphael had not even seen a proof

of it. Still, Gluck conjured him not to trouble further: he would give

his reader strict injunctions not to miss the slightest error. Raphael

had already seen and passed the first column of this page, let him leave

it to Gluck to attend to this second column; all would be well without

his remaining later, and he would receive a copy of the _Flag_ by the

first post. The poor editor, whose head was splitting, weakly yielded;

he just caught the midnight train to the West End and he went to bed

feeling happy and hopeful.

At seven o'clock the next morning the whole Leon household was roused by

a thunderous double rat-tat at the door. Addie was even heard to scream.

A housemaid knocked at Raphael's door and pushed a telegram under it.

Raphael jumped out of bed and read: "Third of column more matter wanted.

Come at once. Gluck."

"How can that be?" he asked himself in consternation. "If the latest

news made a column when it was first set up before the accident, how can

it make less now?"

He dashed up to Gluck's office in a hansom and put the conundrum to him.

"You see we had no time to distribute the 'pie,' and we had no more type

of that kind, so we had to reset it smaller," answered Gluck glibly. His

eyes were blood-shot, his face was haggard. The door of the private

compartment stood open.

"Your men are not come yet, I suppose," said Raphael.

"No," said Gluck. "They didn't go away till two, poor fellows. Is that

the copy?" he asked, as Raphael handed him a couple of slips he had

distractedly scribbled in the cab under the heading of "Talmudic Tales."

"Thank you, it's just about the size. I shall have to set it myself."

"But won't we be terribly late?" said poor Raphael.

"We shall be out to-day," responded Gluck cheerfully. "We shall be in

time for the Sabbath, and that's the important thing. Don't you see

they're half-printed already?" He indicated a huge pile of sheets.

Raphael examined them with beating heart. "We've only got to print 'em

on the other side and the thing's done," said Gluck.

"Where are your machines?"

"There," said Gluck, pointing.

"That hand-press!" cried Raphael, astonished. "Do you mean to say you

print them all with your own hand?"

"Why not?" said the dauntless Gluck. "I shall wrap them up for the

post, too." And he shut himself up with the last of the "copy."

Raphael having exhausted his interest in the half-paper, fell to

striding about the little shop, when who should come in but Pinchas,

smoking a cigar of the Schlesinger brand.

"Ah, my Prince of Rédacteurs," said Pinchas, darting at Raphael's hand

and kissing it. "Did I not say you vould produce the finest paper in the

kingdom? But vy have I not my copy by post? You must not listen to

Ebenezer ven he says I must not be on the free list, the blackguard."

Raphael explained to the incredulous poet that Ebenezer had not said

anything of the kind. Suddenly Pinchas's eye caught sight of the sheets.

He swooped down upon them like a hawk. Then he uttered a shriek of

grief.

"Vere's my poem, my great poesie?"

Raphael looked embarrassed.

"This is only half the paper," he said evasively.

"Ha, then it vill appear in the other half, _hein_?" he said with hope

tempered by a terrible suspicion.

"N--n--o," stammered Raphael timidly.

"No?" shrieked Pinchas.

"You see--the--fact is, it wouldn't scan. Your Hebrew poetry is perfect,

but English poetry is made rather differently and I've been too busy to

correct it."

"But it is exactly like Lord Byron's!" shrieked Pinchas. "Mein Gott! All

night I lie avake--vaiting for the post. At eight o'clock the post

comes--but _The Flag of Judah_ she vaves not! I rush round here--and now

my beautiful poem vill not appear." He seized the sheet again, then

cried fiercely: "You have a tale, 'The Waters of Babylon,' by Ebenezer

the fool-boy, but my poesie have you not. _Gott in Himmel_!" He tore the

sheet frantically across and rushed from the shop. In five minutes he

reappeared. Raphael was absorbed in reading the last proof. Pinchas

plucked timidly at his coat-tails.

"You vill put it in next veek?" he said winningly.

"I dare say," said Raphael gently.

"Ah, promise me. I vill love you like a brother, I vill be grateful to

you for ever and ever. I vill never ask another favor of you in all my

life. Ve are already like brothers--_hein_? I and you, the only two

men--"

"Yes, yes," interrupted Raphael, "it shall appear next week."

"God bless you!" said Pinchas, kissing Raphael's coat-tails passionately

and rushing without.

Looking up accidentally some minutes afterwards, Raphael was astonished

to see the poet's carneying head thrust through the half-open door with

a finger laid insinuatingly on the side of the nose. The head was fixed

there as if petrified, waiting to catch the editor's eye.

The first number of _The Flag of Judah_ appeared early in the afternoon.

CHAPTER IV.

THE TROUBLES OF AN EDITOR.

The new organ did not create a profound impression. By the rival party

it was mildly derided, though many fair-minded persons were impressed by

the rather unusual combination of rigid orthodoxy with a high spiritual

tone and Raphael's conception of Judaism as outlined in his first

leader, his view of it as a happy human compromise between an empty

unpractical spiritualism and a choked-up over-practical formalism,

avoiding the opposite extremes of its offshoots, Christianity and

Mohammedanism, was novel to many of his readers, unaccustomed to think

about their faith. Dissatisfied as Raphael was with the number, he felt

he had fluttered some of the dove-cotes at least. Several people of

taste congratulated him during Saturday and Sunday, and it was with a

continuance of Messianic emotions and with agreeable anticipations that

he repaired on Monday morning to the little den which had been

inexpensively fitted up for him above the offices of Messrs. Schlesinger

and De Haan. To his surprise he found it crammed with the committee; all

gathered round little Sampson, who, with flushed face and cloak

tragically folded, was expostulating at the top of his voice. Pinchas

stood at the back in silent amusement. As Raphael entered jauntily,

from a dozen lips, the lowering faces turned quickly towards him.

Involuntarily Raphael started back in alarm, then stood rooted to the

threshold. There was a dread ominous silence. Then the storm burst.

"_Du Shegetz! Du Pasha Yisroile!_" came from all quarters of the

compass.

To be called a graceless Gentile and a sinner in Israel is not pleasant

to a pious Jew: but all Raphael's minor sensations were swallowed up in

a great wonderment.

"We are ruined!" moaned the furniture-dealer, who was always failing.

"You have ruined us!" came the chorus from the thick, sensuous lips, and

swarthy fists were shaken threateningly. Sugarman's hairy paw was almost

against his face. Raphael turned cold, then a rush of red-hot blood

flooded his veins. He put out his good right hand and smote the nearest

fist aside. Sugarman blenched and skipped back and the line of fists

wavered.

"Don't be fools, gentlemen," said De Haan, his keen sense of humor

asserting itself. "Let Mr. Leon sit down."

Raphael, still dazed, took his seat on the editorial chair. "Now, what

can I do for you?" he said courteously. The fists dropped at his calm.

"Do for us," said Schlesinger drily. "You've done for the paper. It's

not worth twopence."

"Well, bring it out at a penny at once then," laughed little Sampson,

reinforced by the arrival of his editor.

Guedalyah the greengrocer glowered at him.

"I am very sorry, gentlemen, I have not been able to satisfy you," said

Raphael. "But in a first number one can't do much."

"Can't they?" said De Haan. "You've done so much damage to orthodoxy

that we don't know whether to go on with the paper."

"You're joking," murmured Raphael.

"I wish I was," laughed De Haan bitterly.

"But you astonish me." persisted Raphael. "Would you be so good as to

point out where I have gone wrong?"

"With pleasure. Or rather with pain," said De Haan. Each of the

committee drew a tattered copy from his pocket, and followed De Haan's

demonstration with a murmured accompaniment of lamentation.

"The paper was founded to inculcate the inspection of cheese, the better

supervision of the sale of meat, the construction of ladies' baths, and

all the principles of true Judaism," said De Haan gloomily, "and there's

not one word about these things, but a great deal about spirituality and

the significance of the ritual. But I will begin at the beginning. Page

1--"

"But that's advertisements," muttered Raphael.

"The part surest to be read! The very first line of the paper is simply

shocking. It reads:

"Death: On the 59th ult., at 22 Buckley St., the Rev. Abraham Barnett,

in his fifty-fourth--"

"But death is always shocking; what's wrong about that?" interposed

little Sampson.

"Wrong!" repeated De Haan, witheringly. "Where did you get that from?

That was never sent in."

"No, of course not," said the sub-editor. "But we had to have at least

one advertisement of that kind; just to show we should be pleased to

advertise our readers' deaths. I looked in the daily papers to see if

there were any births or marriages with Jewish names, but I couldn't

find any, and that was the only Jewish-sounding death I could see."

"But the Rev. Abraham Barnett was a _Meshumad_," shrieked Sugarman the

_Shadchan_. Raphael turned pale. To have inserted an advertisement about

an apostate missionary was indeed terrible. But little Sampson's

audacity did not desert him.

"I thought the orthodox party would be pleased to hear of the death of a

_Meshumad_," he said suavely, screwing his eyeglass more tightly into

its orbit, "on the same principle that anti-Semites take in the Jewish

papers to hear of the death of Jews."

For a moment De Haan was staggered. "That would be all very well," he

said; "let him be an atonement for us all, but then you've gone and put

'May his soul he bound up in the bundle of life.'"

It was true. The stock Hebrew equivalent for R.I.P. glared from the

page.

"Fortunately, that taking advertisement of _kosher_ trousers comes just

underneath," said De Haan, "and that may draw off the attention. On page

2 you actually say in a note that Rabbenu Bachja's great poem on

repentance should be incorporated in the ritual and might advantageously

replace the obscure _Piyut_ by Kalir. But this is rank Reform--it's

worse than the papers we come to supersede."

"But surely you know it is only the Printing Press that has stereotyped

our liturgy, that for Maimonides and Ibn Ezra, for David Kimchi and

Joseph Albo, the contents were fluid, that--"

"We don't deny that," interrupted Schlesinger drily. "But we can't have

any more alterations now-a-days. Who is there worthy to alter them?

You?"

"Certainly not. I merely suggest."

"You are playing into the hands of our enemies," said De Haan, shaking

his head. "We must not let our readers even imagine that the prayer-book

can be tampered with. It's the thin end of the wedge. To trim our

liturgy is like trimming living flesh; wherever you cut, the blood

oozes. The four cubits of the _Halacha_--that is what is wanted, not

changes in the liturgy. Once touch anything, and where are you to stop?

Our religion becomes a flux. Our old Judaism is like an old family

mansion, where each generation has left a memorial and where every room

is hallowed with traditions of merrymaking and mourning. We do not want

our fathers' home decorated in the latest style; the next step will be

removal to a new dwelling altogether. On page 3 you refer to the second

Isaiah."

"But I deny that there were two Isaiahs."

"So you do; but it is better for our readers not to hear of such impious

theories. The space would be much better occupied in explaining the

Portion for the week. The next leaderette has a flippant tone, which has

excited unfavorable comment among some of the most important members of

the Dalston Synagogue. They object to humor in a religious paper. On

page 4 you have deliberately missed an opportunity of puffing the Kosher

Co-operative Society. Indeed, there is not a word throughout about our

Society. But I like Mr. Henry Goldsmith's letter on this page, though;

he is a good orthodox man and he writes from a good address. It will

show we are not only read in the East End. Pity he's such a

Man-of-the-Earth, though. Yes, and that's good--the communication from

the Rev. Joseph Strelitski. I think he's a bit of an _Epikouros_ but it

looks as if the whole of the Kensington Synagogue was with us. I

understand he is a friend of yours: it will be as well for you to

continue friendly. Several of us here knew him well in _Olov Hasholom_

times, but he is become so grand and rarely shows himself at the Holy

Land League Meetings. He can help us a lot if he will."

"Oh, I'm sure he will," said Raphael.

"That's good," said De Haan, caressing his white beard. Then growing

gloomy again, he went on, "On page 5 you have a little article by

Gabriel Hamburg, a well-known _Epikouros_."

"Oh, but he's one of the greatest scholars in Europe!" broke in Raphael.

"I thought you'd be extra pleased to have it. He sent it to me from

Stockholm as a special favor." He did not mention he had secretly paid

for it. "I know some of his views are heterodox, and I don't agree with

half he says, but this article is perfectly harmless."

"Well, let it pass--very few of our readers have ever heard of him. But

on the same page you have a Latin quotation. I don't say there's

anything wrong in that, but it smacks of Reform. Our readers don't

understand it and it looks as if our Hebrew were poor. The Mishna

contains texts suited for all purposes. We are in no need of Roman

writers. On page 6 you speak of the Reform _Shool_, as if it were to be

reasoned with. Sir, if we mention these freethinkers at all, it must be

in the strongest language. By worshipping bare-headed and by seating the

sexes together they have denied Judaism."

"Stop a minute!" interrupted Raphael warmly. "Who told you the Reformers

do this?"

"Who told me, indeed? Why, it's common knowledge. That's how they've

been going on for the last fifty years." "Everybody knows it," said the

Committee in chorus.

"Has one of you ever been there?" said Raphael, rising in excitement.

"God forbid!" said the chorus.

"Well, I have, and it's a lie," said Raphael. His arms whirled round to

the discomfort of the Committee.

"You ought not to have gone there," said Schlesinger severely. "Besides,

will you deny they have the organ in their Sabbath services?"

"No, I won't!"

"Well, then!" said De Haan, triumphantly. "If they are capable of that,

they are capable of any wickedness. Orthodox people can have nothing to

do with them."

"But orthodox immigrants take their money," said Raphael.

"Their money is _kosher_', they are _tripha_," said De Haan

sententiously. "Page 7, now we get to the most dreadful thing of all!" A

solemn silence fell on the room, Pinchas sniggered unobtrusively.

"You have a little article headed, 'Talmudic Tales.' Why in heaven's

name you couldn't have finished the column with bits of news I don't

know. Satan himself must have put the thought into your head. Just at

the end of the paper, too! For I can't reckon page 8, which is simply

our own advertisement."

"I thought it would be amusing," said Raphael.

"Amusing! If you had simply told the tales, it might have been. But look

how you introduce them! 'These amusing tales occur in the fifth chapter

of Baba Bathra, and are related by Rabbi Bar Bar Channah. Our readers

will see that they are parables or allegories rather than actual

facts.'"

"But do you mean to say you look upon them as facts?" cried Raphael,

sawing the air wildly and pacing about on the toes of the Committee.

"Surely!" said De Haan, while a low growl at his blasphemous doubts ran

along the lips of the Committee.

"Was it treacherously to undermine Judaism that you so eagerly offered

to edit for nothing?" said the furniture-dealer who was always failing.

"But listen here!" cried Raphael, exasperated. "Harmez, the son of

Lilith, a demon, saddled two mules and made them stand on opposite sides

of the River Doneg. He then jumped from the back of one to that of the

other. He had, at the time, a cup of wine in each hand, and as he

jumped, he threw the wine from each cup into the other without spilling

a drop, although a hurricane was blowing at the time. When the King of

demons heard that Harmez had been thus showing off to mortals, he slew

him. Does any of you believe that?"

"Vould our Sages (their memories for a blessing) put anything into the

Talmud that vasn't true?" queried Sugarman. "Ve know there are demons

because it stands that Solomon knew their language."

"But then, what about this?" pursued Raphael. "'I saw a frog which was

as big as the district of Akra Hagronia. A sea-monster came and

swallowed the frog, and a raven came and ate the sea-monster. The raven

then went and perched on a tree' Consider how strong that tree must have

been. R. Papa ben Samuel remarks, 'Had I not been present, I should not

have believed it.' Doesn't this appendix about ben Samuel show that it

was never meant to be taken seriously?"

"It has some high meaning we do not understand in these degenerate

times," said Guedalyah the greengrocer. "It is not for our paper to

weaken faith in the Talmud."

"Hear, hear!" said De Haan, while "_Epikouros_" rumbled through the air,

like distant thunder.

"Didn't I say an Englishman could never master the Talmud?" Sugarman

asked in triumph.

This reminder of Raphael's congenital incompetence softened their minds

towards him, so that when he straightway resigned his editorship, their

self-constituted spokesman besought him to remain. Perhaps they

remembered, too, that he was cheap.

"But we must all edit the paper," said De Haan enthusiastically, when

peace was re-established. "We must have meetings every day and every

article must he read aloud before it is printed."

Little Sampson winked cynically, passing his hand pensively through his

thick tangled locks, but Raphael saw no objection to the arrangement. As

before, he felt his own impracticability borne in upon him, and he

decided to sacrifice himself for the Cause as far as conscience

permitted. Excessive as it was the zeal of these men, it was after all

in the true groove. His annoyance returned for a while, however, when

Sugarman the _Shadchan_ seized the auspicious moment of restored amity

to inquire insinuatingly if his sister was engaged. Pinchas and little

Sampson went down the stairs, quivering with noiseless laughter, which

became boisterous when they reached the street. Pinchas was in high

feather.

"The fool-men!" he said, as he led the sub-editor into a public-house

and regaled him on stout and sandwiches. "They believe any

_Narrischkeit_. I and you are the only two sensible Jews in England. You

vill see that my poesie goes in next week--promise me that! To your

life!" here they touched glasses. "Ah, it is beautiful poesie. Such high

tragic ideas! You vill kiss me when you read them!" He laughed in

childish light-heartedness. "Perhaps I write you a comic opera for your

company--_hein_? Already I love you like a brother. Another glass stout?

Bring us two more, thou Hebe of the hops-nectar. You have seen my comedy

'The Hornet of Judah'--No?--Ah, she vas a great comedy, Sampson. All

London talked of her. She has been translated into every tongue. Perhaps

I play in your company. I am a great actor--_hein_? You know not my

forte is voman's parts--I make myself so lovely complexion vith red

paint, I fall in love vith me." He sniggered over his stout. "The

Rédacteur vill not redact long, _hein_?" he said presently. "He is a

fool-man. If he work for nothing they think that is what he is worth.

They are orthodox, he, he!"

"But he is orthodox too," said little Sampson.

"Yes," replied Pinchas musingly. "It is strange. It is very strange. I

cannot understand him. Never in all my experience have I met another

such man. There vas an Italian exile I talked vith once in the island

of Chios, his eyes were like Leon's, soft vith a shining splendor like

the stars vich are the eyes of the angels of love. Ah, he is a good man,

and he writes sharp; he has ideas, not like an English Jew at all. I

could throw my arms round him sometimes. I love him like a brother." His

voice softened. "Another glass stout; ve vill drink to him."

Raphael did not find the editing by Committee feasible. The friction was

incessant, the waste of time monstrous. The second number cost him even

more headaches than the first, and this, although the gallant Gluck

abandoning his single-handed emprise fortified himself with a real live

compositor and had arranged for the paper to be printed by machinery.

The position was intolerable. It put a touch of acid into his

dulciferous mildness! Just before going to press he was positively rude

to Pinchas. It would seem that little Sampson sheltering himself behind

his capitalists had refused to give the poet a commission for a comic

opera, and Pinchas raved at Gideon, M.P., who he was sure was Sampson's

financial backer, and threatened to shoot him and danced maniacally

about the office.

"I have written an attack on the Member for Vitechapel," he said,

growing calmer, "to hand him down to the execration of posterity, and I

have brought it to the _Flag_. It must go in this veek."

"We have already your poem," said Raphael.

"I know, but I do not grudge my work, I am not like your money-making

English Jews."

"There is no room. The paper is full."

"Leave out Ebenezer's tale--with the blue spectacles."

"There is none. It was completed in one number."

"Well, must you put in your leader?"

"Absolutely; please go away. I have this page to read."

"But you can leave out some advertisements?"

"I must not. We have too few as it is."

The poet put his finger alongside his nose, but Raphael was adamant.

"Do me this one favor," he pleaded. "I love you like a brother; just

this one little thing. I vill never ask another favor of you all my

life."

"I would not put it in, even if there was room. Go away," said Raphael,

almost roughly.

The unaccustomed accents gave Pinchas a salutary shock. He borrowed two

shillings and left, and Raphael was afraid to look up lest he should see

his head wedged in the doorway. Soon after Gluck and his one compositor

carried out the forms to be machined. Little Sampson, arriving with a

gay air on his lips, met them at the door.

On the Friday, Raphael sat in the editorial chair, utterly dispirited, a

battered wreck. The Committee had just left him. A heresy had crept into

a bit of late news not inspected by them, and they declared that the

paper was not worth twopence and had better be stopped. The demand for

this second number was, moreover, rather poor, and each man felt his ten

pound share melting away, and resolved not to pay up the half yet

unpaid. It was Raphael's first real experience of men--after the

enchanted towers of Oxford, where he had foregathered with dreamers.

His pipe hung listless in his mouth; an extinct volcano. His first fit

of distrust in human nature, nay, even in the purifying powers of

orthodoxy, was racking him. Strangely enough this wave of scepticism

tossed up the thought of Esther Ansell, and stranger still on the top of

this thought, in walked Mr. Henry Goldsmith. Raphael jumped up and

welcomed his late host, whose leathery countenance shone with the polish

of a sweet smile. It appeared that the communal pillar had been passing

casually, and thought he'd look Raphael up.

"So you don't pull well together," he said, when he had elicited an

outline of the situation from the editor.

"No, not altogether," admitted Raphael.

"Do you think the paper'll live?"

"I can't say," said Raphael, dropping limply into his chair. "Even if it

does. I don't know whether it will do much good if run on their lines,

for although it is of great importance that we get _kosher_ food and

baths. I hardly think they go about it in the right spirit. I may be

wrong. They are older men than I and have seen more of actual life, and

know the class we appeal to better."

"No, no, you are not wrong," said Mr. Goldsmith vehemently. "I am

myself dissatisfied with some of the Committee's contributions to this

second number. It is a great opportunity to save English Judaism, but it

is being frittered away."

"I am afraid it is," said Raphael, removing his empty pipe from his

mouth, and staring at it blankly.

Mr. Goldsmith brought his fist down sharp on the soft litter that

covered the editorial table.

"It shall not be frittered away!" he cried. "No, not if I have to buy

the paper!"

Raphael looked up eagerly.

"What do you say?" said Goldsmith. "Shall I buy it up and let you work

it on your lines?"

"I shall be very glad," said Raphael, the Messianic look returning to

his face.

"How much will they want for it?"

"Oh, I think they'll be glad to let you take it over. They say it's not

worth twopence, and I'm sure they haven't got the funds to carry it on,"

replied Raphael, rising. "I'll go down about it at once. The Committee

have just been here, and I dare say they are still in Schlesinger's

office."

"No, no," said Goldsmith, pushing him down into his seat. "It will never

do if people know I'm the proprietor."

"Why not?"

"Oh, lots of reasons. I'm not a man to brag; if I want to do a good

thing for Judaism, there's no reason for all the world to know it. Then

again, from my position on all sorts of committees I shall be able to

influence the communal advertisements in a way I couldn't if people knew

I had any connection with the paper. So, too, I shall be able to

recommend it to my wealthy friends (as no doubt it will deserve to be

recommended) without my praise being discounted."

"Well, but then what am I to say to the Committee?"

"Can't you say you want to buy it for yourself? They know you can afford

it."

Raphael hesitated. "But why shouldn't I buy it for myself?"

"Pooh! Haven't you got better use for your money?"

It was true. Raphael had designs more tangibly philanthropic for the

five thousand pounds left him by his aunt. And he was business-like

enough to see that Mr. Goldsmith's money might as well be utilized for

the good of Judaism. He was not quite easy about the little fiction that

would he necessary for the transaction, but the combined assurances of

Mr. Goldsmith and his own common sense that there was no real deception

or harm involved in it, ultimately prevailed. Mr. Goldsmith left,

promising to call again in an hour, and Raphael, full of new hopes,

burst upon the Committee.

But his first experience of bargaining was no happier than the rest of

his worldly experience. When he professed his willingness to relieve

them of the burden of carrying on the paper they first stared, then

laughed, then shook their fists. As if they would leave him to corrupt

the Faith! When they understood he was willing to pay something, the

value of _The Flag of Judah_ went up from less than twopence to more

than two hundred pounds. Everybody was talking about it, its reputation

was made, they were going to print double next week.

"But it has not cost you forty pounds yet?" said the astonished Raphael.

"What are you saying? Look at the posters alone!" said Sugarman.

"But you don't look at it fairly," argued De Haan, whose Talmudical

studies had sharpened wits already super-subtle. "Whatever it has cost

us, it would have cost as much more if we had had to pay our editor, and

it is very unfair of you to leave that out of account."

Raphael was overwhelmed. "It's taking away with the left hand what you

gave us with the right," added De Haan, with infinite sadness. "I had

thought better of you, Mr. Leon."

"But you got a good many twopences back," murmured Raphael.

"It's the future profits that we're losing," explained Schlesinger.

In the end Raphael agreed to give a hundred pounds, which made the

members inwardly determine to pay up the residue on their shares at

once. De Haan also extorted a condition that the _Flag_ should continue

to be the organ of the Kosher Co-operative Society, for at least six

months, doubtless perceiving that should the paper live and thrive over

that period, it would not then pay the proprietor to alter its

principles. By which bargain the Society secured for itself a sum of

money together with an organ, gratis, for six months and, to all

seeming, in perpetuity, for at bottom they knew well that Raphael's

heart was sound. They were all on the free list, too, and they knew he

would not trouble to remove them.

Mr. Henry Goldsmith, returning, was rather annoyed at the price, but did

not care to repudiate his agent.

"Be economical," he said. "I will get you a better office and find a

proper publisher and canvasser. But cut it as close as you can."

Raphael's face beamed with joy. "Oh, depend upon me," he said.

"What is your own salary?" asked Goldsmith.

"Nothing," said Raphael.

A flash passed across Goldsmith's face, then he considered a moment.

"I wish you would let it be a guinea," he said. "Quite nominal, you

know. Only I like to have things in proper form. And if you ever want to

go, you know, you'll give me a month's notice and," here he laughed

genially, "I'll do ditto when I want to get rid of you. Ha! Ha! Ha! Is

that a bargain?"

Raphael smiled in reply and the two men's hands met in a hearty clasp.

"Miss Ansell will help you, I know," said Goldsmith cheerily. "That

girl's got it in her, I can tell you. She'll take the shine out of some

of our West Enders. Do you know I picked her out of the gutter, so to

speak?"

"Yes, I know," said Raphael. "It was very good and discriminating of

you. How is she?"

"She's all right. Come up and see her about doing something for you. She

goes to the Museum sometimes in the afternoons, but you'll always find

her in on Sundays, or most Sundays. Come up and dine with us again

soon, will you? Mrs. Goldsmith will be so pleased."

"I will," said Raphael fervently. And when the door closed upon the

communal pillar, he fell to striding feverishly about his little den.

His trust in human nature was restored and the receding wave of

scepticism bore off again the image of Esther Ansell. Now to work for

Judaism!

The sub-editor made his first appearance that day, carolling joyously.

"Sampson," said Raphael abruptly, "your salary is raised by a guinea a

week."

The joyous song died away on little Sampson's lips. His eyeglass

dropped. He let himself fall backwards, impinging noiselessly upon a

heap of "returns" of number one.

CHAPTER V.

A WOMAN'S GROWTH.

The sloppy Sunday afternoon, which was the first opportunity Raphael had

of profiting by Mr. Henry Goldsmith's general invitation to call and see

Esther, happened to be that selected by the worthy couple for a round of

formal visits. Esther was left at home with a headache, little expecting

pleasanter company. She hesitated about receiving Raphael, but on

hearing that he had come to see her rather than her patrons, she

smoothed her hair, put on a prettier frock, and went down into the

drawing-room, where she found him striding restlessly in bespattered

boots and moist overcoat. When he became aware of her presence, he went

towards her eagerly, and shook her hand with jerky awkwardness.

"How are you?" he said heartily.

"Very well, thank you," she replied automatically. Then a twinge, as of

reproach at the falsehood, darted across her brow, and she added, "A

trifle of the usual headache. I hope you are well."

"Quite, thank you," he rejoined.

His face rather contradicted him. It looked thin, pale, and weary.

Journalism writes lines on the healthiest countenance. Esther looked at

him disapprovingly; she had the woman's artistic instinct if not the

artist's, and Raphael, with his damp overcoat, everlastingly crumpled at

the collar, was not an aesthetic object. Whether in her pretty moods or

her plain, Esther was always neat and dainty. There was a bit of ruffled

lace at her throat, and the heliotrope of her gown contrasted agreeably

with the dark skin of the vivid face.

"Do take off your overcoat and dry yourself at the fire," she said.

While he was disposing of it, she poked the fire into a big cheerful

blaze, seating herself opposite him in a capacious arm-chair, where the

flame picked her out in bright tints upon the dusky background of the

great dim room.

"And how is _The Flag of Judah_?" she said.

"Still waving," he replied. "It is about that that I have come."

"About that?" she said wonderingly. "Oh, I see; you want to know if the

one person it is written at has read it. Well, make your mind easy. I

have. I have read it religiously--No, I don't mean that; yes, I do; it's

the appropriate word."

"Really?" He tried to penetrate behind the bantering tone.

"Yes, really. You put your side of the case eloquently and well. I look

forward to Friday with interest. I hope the paper is selling?"

"So, so," he said. "It is uphill work. The Jewish public looks on

journalism as a branch of philanthropy, I fear, and Sidney suggests

publishing our free-list as a 'Jewish Directory.'"

She smiled. "Mr. Graham is very amusing. Only, he is too well aware of

it. He has been here once since that dinner, and we discussed you. He

says he can't understand how you came to be a cousin of his, even a

second cousin. He says he is _L'Homme qui rit_, and you are _L'Homme qui

prie_."

"He has let that off on me already, supplemented by the explanation that

every extensive Jewish family embraces a genius and a lunatic. He

admits that he is the genius. The unfortunate part for me," ended

Raphael, laughing, "is, that he _is_ a genius."

"I saw two of his little things the other day at the Impressionist

Exhibition in Piccadilly. They are very clever and dashing."

"I am told he draws ballet-girls," said Raphael, moodily.

"Yes, he is a disciple of Degas."

"You don't like that style of art?" he said, a shade of concern in his

voice.

"I do not," said Esther, emphatically. "I am a curious mixture. In art,

I have discovered in myself two conflicting tastes, and neither is for

the modern realism, which I yet admire in literature. I like poetic

pictures, impregnated with vague romantic melancholy; and I like the

white lucidity of classic statuary. I suppose the one taste is the

offspring of temperament, the other of thought; for intellectually, I

admire the Greek ideas, and was glad to hear you correct Sidney's

perversion of the adjective. I wonder," she added, reflectively, "if one

can worship the gods of the Greeks without believing in them."

"But you wouldn't make a cult of beauty?"

"Not if you take beauty in the narrow sense in which I should fancy your

cousin uses the word; but, in a higher and broader sense, is it not the

one fine thing in life which is a certainty, the one ideal which is not

illusion?"

"Nothing is illusion," said Raphael, earnestly. "At least, not in your

sense. Why should the Creator deceive us?"

"Oh well, don't let us get into metaphysics. We argue from different

platforms," she said. "Tell me what you really came about in connection

with the _Flag_."

"Mr. Goldsmith was kind enough to suggest that you might write for it."

"What!" exclaimed Esther, sitting upright in her arm-chair. "I? I write

for an orthodox paper?"

"Yes, why not?"

"Do you mean I'm to take part in my own conversion?"

"The paper is not entirely religious," he reminded her.

"No, there are the advertisements." she said slily.

"Pardon me," he said. "We don't insert any advertisements contrary to

the principles of orthodoxy. Not that we are much tempted."

"You advertise soap," she murmured.

"Oh, please! Don't you go in for those cheap sarcasms."

"Forgive me," she said. "Remember my conceptions of orthodoxy are drawn

mainly from the Ghetto, where cleanliness, so far from being next to

godliness, is nowhere in the vicinity. But what can I do for you?"

"I don't know. At present the staff, the _Flag_-staff as Sidney calls

it, consists of myself and a sub-editor, who take it in turn to

translate the only regular outside contributor's articles into English."

"Who's that?"

"Melchitsedek Pinchas, the poet I told you of."

"I suppose he writes in Hebrew."

"No, if he did the translation would be plain sailing enough. The

trouble is that he will write in English. I must admit, though, he

improves daily. Our correspondents, too, have the same weakness for the

vernacular, and I grieve to add that when they do introduce a Hebrew

word, they do not invariably spell it correctly."

She smiled; her smile was never so fascinating as by firelight.

Raphael rose and paced the room nervously, flinging out his arms in

uncouth fashion to emphasize his speech.

"I was thinking you might introduce a secular department of some sort

which would brighten up the paper. My articles are so plaguy dull."

"Not so dull, for religious articles," she assured him.

"Could you treat Jewish matters from a social standpoint--gossipy sort

of thing."

She shook her head. "I'm afraid to trust myself to write on Jewish

subjects. I should be sure to tread on somebody's corns."

"Oh, I have it!" he cried, bringing his arms in contact with a small

Venetian vase which Esther, with great presence of mind, just managed to

catch ere it reached the ground.

"No, I have it," she said, laughing. "Do sit down, else nobody can

answer for the consequences."

She half pushed him into his chair, where he fell to warming his hands

contemplatively.

"Well?" she said after a pause. "I thought you had an idea."

"Yes, yes," he said, rousing himself. "The subject we were just

discussing--Art."

"But there is nothing Jewish about art."

"All noble work has its religious aspects. Then there are Jewish

artists."

"Oh yes! your contemporaries do notice their exhibits, and there seem to

be more of them than the world ever hears of. But if I went to a

gathering for you how should I know which were Jews?"

"By their names, of course."

"By no means of course. Some artistic Jews have forgotten their own

names."

"That's a dig at Sidney."

"Really, I wasn't thinking of him for the moment," she said a little

sharply. "However, in any case there's nothing worth doing till May, and

that's some months ahead. I'll do the Academy for you if you like."

"Thank you. Won't Sidney stare if you pulverize him in _The Flag of

Judah_? Some of the pictures have also Jewish subjects, you know."

"Yes, but if I mistake not, they're invariably done by Christian

artists."

"Nearly always," he admitted pensively. "I wish we had a Jewish

allegorical painter to express the high conceptions of our sages."

"As he would probably not know what they are,"--she murmured. Then,

seeing him rise as if to go, she said: "Won't you have a cup of tea?"

"No, don't trouble," he answered.

"Oh yes, do!" she pleaded. "Or else I shall think you're angry with me

for not asking you before." And she rang the bell. She discovered, to

her amusement, that Raphael took two pieces of sugar per cup, but that

if they were not inserted, he did not notice their absence. Over tea,

too, Raphael had a new idea, this time fraught with peril to the Sèvres

tea-pot.

"Why couldn't you write us a Jewish serial story?" he said suddenly.

"That would be a novelty in communal journalism."

Esther looked startled by the proposition.

"How do you know I could?" she said after a silence.

"I don't know," he replied. "Only I fancy you could. Why not?" he said

encouragingly. "You don't know what you can do till you try. Besides you

write poetry."

"The Jewish public doesn't like the looking-glass," she answered him,

shaking her head.

"Oh, you can't say that. They've only objected as yet to the distorting

mirror. You're thinking of the row over that man Armitage's book. Now,

why not write an antidote to that book? There now, there's an idea for

you."

"It _is_ an idea!" said Esther with overt sarcasm. "You think art can be

degraded into an antidote."

"Art is not a fetish," he urged. "What degradation is there in art

teaching a noble lesson?"

"Ah, that is what you religious people will never understand," she said

scathingly. "You want everything to preach."

"Everything does preach something," he retorted. "Why not have the

sermon good?"

"I consider the original sermon _was_ good," she said defiantly. "It

doesn't need an antidote."

"How can you say that? Surely, merely as one who was born a Jewess, you

wouldn't care for the sombre picture drawn by this Armitage to stand as

a portrait of your people."

She shrugged her shoulders--the ungraceful shrug of the Ghetto. "Why

not? It is one-sided, but it is true."

"I don't deny that; probably the man was sincerely indignant at certain

aspects. I am ready to allow he did not even see he was one-sided. But

if _you_ see it, why not show the world the other side of the shield?"

She put her hand wearily to her brow.

"Do not ask me," she said. "To have my work appreciated merely because

the moral tickled the reader's vanity would be a mockery. The suffrages

of the Jewish public--I might have valued them once; now I despise

them." She sank further back on the chair, pale and silent.

"Why, what harm have they done you?" he asked.

"They are so stupid," she said, with a gesture of distaste.

"That is a new charge against the Jews."

"Look at the way they have denounced this Armitage, saying his book is

vulgar and wretched and written for gain, and all because it does not

flatter them."

"Can you wonder at it? To say 'you're another' may not be criticism, but

it is human nature."

Esther smiled sadly. "I cannot make you out at all," she said.

"Why? What is there strange about me?"

"You say such shrewd, humorous things sometimes; I wonder how you can

remain orthodox."

"Now I can't understand _you_," he said, puzzled.

"Oh well. Perhaps if you could, you wouldn't be orthodox. Let us remain

mutual enigmas. And will you do me a favor?"

"With pleasure," he said, his face lighting up.

"Don't mention Mr. Armitage's book to me again. I am sick of hearing

about it."

"So am I," he said, rather disappointed. "After that dinner I thought it

only fair to read it, and although I detect considerable crude power in

it, still I am very sorry it was ever published. The presentation of

Judaism is most ignorant. All the mystical yearnings of the heroine

might have found as much satisfaction in the faith of her own race as

they find expression in its poetry."

He rose to go. "Well, I am to take it for granted you will not write

that antidote?"

"I'm afraid it would be impossible for me to undertake it," she said

more mildly than before, and pressed her hand again to her brow.

"Pardon me," he said in much concern. "I am too selfish. I forgot you

are not well. How is your head feeling now?"

"About the same, thank you," she said, forcing a grateful smile. "You

may rely on me for art; yes, and music, too, if you like."

"Thank you," he said. "You read a great deal, don't you?"

She nodded her head. "Well, every week books are published of more or

less direct Jewish interest. I should be glad of notes about such to

brighten up the paper."

"For anything strictly unorthodox you may count on me. If that antidote

turns up, I shall not fail to cackle over it in your columns. By the by,

are you going to review the poison? Excuse so many mixed metaphors," she

added, with a rather forced laugh.

"No, I shan't say anything about it. Why give it an extra advertisement

by slating it?"

"Slating," she repeated with a faint smile. "I see you have mastered all

the slang of your profession."

"Ah, that's the influence of my sub-editor," he said, smiling in return.

"Well, good-bye."

"You're forgetting your overcoat," she said, and having smoothed out

that crumpled collar, she accompanied him down the wide soft-carpeted

staircase into the hall with its rich bronzes and glistening statues.

"How are your people in America?" he bethought himself to ask on the way

down.

"They are very well, thank you," she said. "I send my brother Solomon

_The Flag of Judah_. He is also, I am afraid, one of the unregenerate.

You see I am doing my best to enlarge your congregation."

He could not tell whether it was sarcasm or earnest.

"Well, good-bye," he said, holding out his hand. "Thank you for your

promise."

"Oh, that's not worth thanking me for," she said, touching his long

white fingers for an instant. "Look at the glory of seeing myself in

print. I hope you're not annoyed with me for refusing to contribute

fiction," she ended, growing suddenly remorseful at the moment of

parting.

"Of course not. How could I be?"

"Couldn't your sister Adelaide do you a story?"

"Addle?" he repeated laughing, "Fancy Addie writing stories! Addie has

no literary ability."

"That's always the way with brothers. Solomon says--" She paused

suddenly.

"I don't remember for the moment that Solomon has any proverb on the

subject," he said, still amused at the idea of Addie as an authoress.

"I was thinking of something else. Good-bye. Remember me to your sister,

please."

"Certainly," he said. Then he exclaimed, "Oh, what a block-head I am! I

forgot to remember her to you. She says she would be so pleased if you

would come and have tea and a chat with her some day. I should like you

and Addie to know each other."

"Thanks, I will. I will write to her some day. Good-bye, once more."

He shook hands with her and fumbled at the door.

"Allow me!" she said, and opened it upon the gray dulness of the

dripping street. "When may I hope for the honor of another visit from a

real live editor?"

"I don't know," he said, smiling. "I'm awfully busy, I have to read a

paper on Ibn Ezra at Jews' College to-day fortnight."

"Outsiders admitted?" she asked.

"The lectures _are_ for outsiders," he said. "To spread the knowledge of

our literature. Only they won't come. Have you never been to one?"

She shook her head.

"There!" he said. "You complain of our want of culture, and you don't

even know what's going on."

She tried to take the reproof with a smile, but the corners of her mouth

quivered. He raised his hat and went down the steps.

She followed him a little way along the Terrace, with eyes growing dim

with tears she could not account for. She went back to the drawing-room

and threw herself into the arm-chair where he had sat, and made her

headache worse by thinking of all her unhappiness. The great room was

filling with dusk, and in the twilight pictures gathered and dissolved.

What girlish dreams and revolts had gone to make that unfortunate book,

which after endless boomerang-like returns from the publishers, had

appeared, only to be denounced by Jewry, ignored by its journals and

scantily noticed by outside criticisms. _Mordecai Josephs_ had fallen

almost still-born from the press; the sweet secret she had hoped to tell

her patroness had turned bitter like that other secret of her dead love

for Sidney, in the reaction from which she had written most of her book.

How fortunate at least that her love had flickered out, had proved but

the ephemeral sentiment of a romantic girl for the first brilliant man

she had met. Sidney had fascinated her by his verbal audacities in a

world of narrow conventions; he had for the moment laughed away

spiritual aspirations and yearnings with a raillery that was almost like

ozone to a young woman avid of martyrdom for the happiness of the world.

How, indeed, could she have expected the handsome young artist to feel

the magic that hovered about her talks with him, to know the thrill that

lay in the formal hand-clasp, to be aware that he interpreted for her

poems and pictures, and incarnated the undefined ideal of girlish

day-dreams? How could he ever have had other than an intellectual

thought of her; how could any man, even the religious Raphael? Sickly,

ugly little thing that she was! She got up and looked in the glass now

to see herself thus, but the shadows had gathered too thickly. She

snatched up a newspaper that lay on a couch, lit it, and held it before

the glass; it flared up threateningly and she beat it out, laughing

hysterically and asking herself if she was mad. But she had seen the

ugly little face; its expression frightened her. Yes, love was not for

her; she could only love a man of brilliancy and culture, and she was

nothing but a Petticoat Lane girl, after all. Its coarseness, its

vulgarity underlay all her veneer. They had got into her book; everybody

said so. Raphael said so. How dared she write disdainfully of Raphael's

people? She an upstart, an outsider? She went to the library, lit the

gas, got down a volume of Graetz's history of the Jews, which she had

latterly taken to reading, and turned over its wonderful pages. Then she

wandered restlessly back to the great dim drawing-room and played

amateurish fantasias on the melancholy Polish melodies of her childhood

till Mr. and Mrs. Henry Goldsmith returned. They had captured the Rev.

Joseph Strelitski and brought him back to dinner, Esther would have

excused herself from the meal, but Mrs. Goldsmith insisted the minister

would think her absence intentionally discourteous. In point of fact,

Mrs. Goldsmith, like all Jewesses a born match-maker, was not

disinclined to think of the popular preacher as a sort of adopted

son-in-law. She did not tell herself so, but she instinctively resented

the idea of Esther marrying into the station of her patroness.

Strelitski, though his position was one of distinction for a Jewish

clergyman, was, like Esther, of humble origin; it would be a match which

she could bless from her pedestal in genuine good-will towards both

parties.

The fashionable minister was looking careworn and troubled. He had aged

twice ten years since his outburst at the Holy Land League. The black

curl hung disconsolately on his forehead. He sat at Esther's side, but

rarely looking at her, or addressing her, so that her taciturnity and

scarcely-veiled dislike did not noticeably increase his gloom. He

rallied now and again out of politeness to his hostess, flashing out a

pregnant phrase or two. But prosperity did not seem to have brought

happiness to the whilom, poor Russian student, even though he had fought

his way to it unaided.

CHAPTER VI.

COMEDY OR TRAGEDY?

The weeks went on and Passover drew nigh. The recurrence of the feast

brought no thrill to Esther now. It was no longer a charmed time, with

strange things to eat and drink, and a comparative plenty of

them--stranger still. Lack of appetite was the chief dietary want now.

Nobody had any best clothes to put on in a world where everything was

for the best in the way of clothes. Except for the speckled Passover

cakes, there was hardly any external symptom of the sacred Festival.

While the Ghetto was turning itself inside out, the Kensington Terrace

was calm in the dignity of continuous cleanliness. Nor did Henry

Goldsmith himself go prowling about the house in quest of vagrant

crumbs. Mary O'Reilly attended to all that, and the Goldsmiths had

implicit confidence in her fidelity to the traditions of their faith.

Wherefore, the evening of the day before Passover, instead of being

devoted to frying fish and provisioning, was free for more secular

occupations; Esther, for example, had arranged to go to see the _début_

of a new Hamlet with Addie. Addie had asked her to go, mentioned that

Raphael, who was taking her, had suggested that she should bring her

friend. For they had become great friends, had Addie and Esther, ever

since Esther had gone to take that cup of tea, with the chat that is

more essential than milk or sugar.

The girls met or wrote every week. Raphael, Esther never met nor heard

from directly. She found Addie a sweet, lovable girl, full of frank

simplicity and unquestioning piety. Though dazzlingly beautiful, she had

none of the coquetry which Esther, with a touch of jealousy, had been

accustomed to associate with beauty, and she had little of the petty

malice of girlish gossip. Esther summed her up as Raphael's heart

without his head. It was unfair, for Addie's own head was by no means

despicable. But Esther was not alone in taking eccentric opinions as the

touchstone of intellectual vigor. Anyhow, she was distinctly happier

since Addie had come into her life, and she admired her as a mountain

torrent might admire a crystal pool--half envying her happier

temperament.

The Goldsmiths were just finishing dinner, when the expected ring came.

To their surprise, the ringer was Sidney. He was shown into the

dining-room.

"Good evening, all," he said. "I've come as a substitute for Raphael."

Esther grew white. "Why, what has happened to him?" she asked.

"Nothing, I had a telegram to say he was unexpectedly detained in the

city, and asking me to take Addie and to call for you."

Esther turned from white to red. How rude of Raphael! How disappointing

not to meet him, after all! And did he think she could thus

unceremoniously be handed over to somebody else? She was about to beg to

be excused, when it struck her a refusal would look too pointed.

Besides, she did not fear Sidney now. It would be a test of her

indifference. So she murmured instead, "What can detain him?"

"Charity, doubtless. Do you know, that after he is fagged out with

upholding the _Flag_ from early morning till late eve, he devotes the

later eve to gratuitous tuition, lecturing and the like."

"No," said Esther, softened. "I knew he came home late, but I thought he

had to report communal meetings."

"That, too. But Addie tells me he never came home at all one night last

week. He was sitting up with some wretched dying pauper."

"He'll kill himself," said Esther, anxiously.

"People are right about him. He is quite hopeless," said Percy Saville,

the solitary guest, tapping his forehead significantly.

"Perhaps it is we who are hopeless," said Esther, sharply.

"I wish we were all as sensible," said Mrs. Henry Goldsmith, turning on

the unhappy stockbroker with her most superior air. "Mr. Leon always

reminds me of Judas Maccabaeus."

He shrank before the blaze of her mature beauty, the fulness of her

charms revealed by her rich evening dress, her hair radiating strange,

subtle perfume. His eye sought Mr. Goldsmith's for refuge and

consolation.

"That is so," said Mr. Goldsmith, rubbing his red chin. "He is an

excellent young man."

"May I trouble you to put on your things at once, Miss Ansell?" said

Sidney. "I have left Addie in the carriage, and we are rather late. I

believe it is usual for ladies to put on 'things,' even when in evening

dress. I may mention that there is a bouquet for you in the carriage,

and, however unworthy a substitute I may be for Raphael, I may at least

claim he would have forgotten to bring you that."

Esther smiled despite herself as she left the room to get her cloak. She

was chagrined and disappointed, but she resolved not to inflict her

ill-humor on her companions.

She had long since got used to carriages, and when they arrived at the

theatre, she took her seat in the box without heart-fluttering. It was

an old discovery now that boxes had no connection with oranges nor

stalls with costers' barrows.

The house was brilliant. The orchestra was playing the overture.

"I wish Mr. Shakspeare would write a new play," grumbled Sidney. "All

these revivals make him lazy. Heavens! what his fees must tot up to! If

I were not sustained by the presence of you two girls, I should no more

survive the fifth act than most of the characters. Why don't they

brighten the piece up with ballet-girls?"

"Yes, I suppose you blessed Mr. Leon when you got his telegram," said

Esther. "What a bore it must be to you to be saddled with his duties!"

"Awful!" admitted Sidney gravely. "Besides, it interferes with my work."

"Work?" said Addie. "You know you only work by sunlight."

"Yes, that's the best of my profession--in England. It gives you such

opportunities of working--at other professions."

"Why, what do you work at?" inquired Esther, laughing.

"Well, there's amusement, the most difficult of all things to achieve!

Then there's poetry. You don't know what a dab I am at rondeaux and

barcarolles. And I write music, too, lovely little serenades to my

lady-loves and reveries that are like dainty pastels."

"All the talents!" said Addie, looking at him with a fond smile. "But if

you have any time to spare from the curling of your lovely silken

moustache, which is entirely like a delicate pastel, will you kindly

tell me what celebrities are present?"

"Yes, do," added Esther, "I have only been to two first nights, and then

I had nobody to point out the lions."

"Well, first of all I see a very celebrated painter in a box--a man who

has improved considerably on the weak draughtsmanship displayed by

Nature in her human figures, and the amateurishness of her glaring

sunsets."

"Who's that?" inquired Addie and Esther eagerly.

"I think he calls himself Sidney Graham--but that of course is only a

_nom de pinceau_."

"Oh!" said, the girls, with a reproachful smile.

"Do be serious!" said Esther. "Who is that stout gentleman with the bald

head?" She peered down curiously at the stalls through her opera-glass.

"What, the lion without the mane? That's Tom Day, the dramatic critic of

a dozen papers. A terrible Philistine. Lucky for Shakspeare he didn't

flourish in Elizabethan times."

He rattled on till the curtain rose and the hushed audience settled down

to the enjoyment of the tragedy.

"This looks as if it is going to be the true Hamlet," said Esther, after

the first act.

"What do you mean by the true Hamlet?" queried Sidney cynically.

"The Hamlet for whom life is at once too big and too little," said

Esther.

"And who was at once mad and sane," laughed Sidney. "The plain truth is

that Shakspeare followed the old tale, and what you take for subtlety is

but the blur of uncertain handling. Aha! You look shocked. Have I found

your religion at last?"

"No; my reverence for our national bard is based on reason," rejoined

Esther seriously. "To conceive Hamlet, the typical nineteenth-century

intellect, in that bustling picturesque Elizabethan time was a creative

feat bordering on the miraculous. And then, look at the solemn

inexorable march of destiny in his tragedies, awful as its advance in

the Greek dramas. Just as the marvels of the old fairy-tales were an

instinctive prevision of the miracles of modern science, so this idea

of destiny seems to me an instinctive anticipation of the formulas of

modern science. What we want to-day is a dramatist who shall show us the

great natural silent forces, working the weal and woe of human life

through the illusions of consciousness and free will."