The King of Schnorrers: Grotesques and Fantasies. Zangwill Israel

spasm crossed his face.

      "Excuse me!" he cried, and hastened towards the door.

      "What's the matter?" exclaimed Grobstock, in astonished apprehension. Was his gift to be flouted thus?

      "I'll be back in a moment," said Manasseh, and hurried down the stairs.

      Relieved on one point, Grobstock was still full of vague alarms. He ran out on the landing. "What do you want?" he called down as loudly as he dared.

      "My money!" said Manasseh.

      Imagining that the Schnorrer had left the proceeds of the sale of the salmon in the hall, Joseph Grobstock returned to his room, and occupied himself half-mechanically in sorting the garments he had thrown higgledy-piggledy upon the bed. In so doing he espied amid the heap a pair of pantaloons entirely new and unworn which he had carelessly thrown in. It was while replacing this in the wardrobe that he heard sounds of objurgation. The cook's voice – Hibernian and high-pitched – travelled unmistakably to his ears, and brought fresh trepidation to his heart. He repaired to the landing again, and craned his neck over the balustrade. Happily the sounds were evanescent; in another minute Manasseh's head reappeared, mounting. When his left hand came in sight, Grobstock perceived it was grasping the lucky-bag with which a certain philanthropist had started out so joyously that afternoon. The unlucky-bag he felt inclined to dub it now.

      "I have recovered it!" observed the Schnorrer cheerfully. "As it is written, 'And David recovered all that the Amalekites had taken.' You see in the excitement of the moment I did not notice that you had stolen my packets of silver as well as my salmon. Luckily your cook had not yet removed the fish from the bag – I chid her all the same for neglecting to put it into water, and she opened her mouth not in wisdom. If she had not been a heathen I should have suspected her of trickery, for I knew nothing of the amount of money in the bag, saving your assurance that it did not fall below seventeen shillings, and it would have been easy for her to replace the fish. Therefore, in the words of David, will I give thanks unto Thee, O Lord, among the heathen."

      The mental vision of the irruption of Manasseh into the kitchen was not pleasant to Grobstock. However, he only murmured: "How came you to think of it so suddenly?"

      "Looking at your clothes reminded me. I was wondering if you had left anything in the pockets."

      The donor started – he knew himself a careless rascal – and made as if he would overhaul his garments. The glitter in Manasseh's eye petrified him.

      "Do you – do you – mind my looking?" he stammered apologetically.

      "Am I a dog?" quoted the Schnorrer with dignity. "Am I a thief that you should go over my pockets? If, when I get home," he conceded, commencing to draw distinctions with his thumb, "I should find anything in my pockets that is of no value to anybody but you, do you fear I will not return it? If, on the other hand, I find anything that is of value to me, do you fear I will not keep it?"

      "No, but – but – " Grobstock broke down, scarcely grasping the argumentation despite his own clarity of financial insight; he only felt vaguely that the Schnorrer was – professionally enough – begging the question.

      "But what?" enquired Manasseh. "Surely you need not me to teach you your duty. You cannot be ignorant of the Law of Moses on the point."

      "The Law of Moses says nothing on the point!"

      "Indeed! What says Deuteronomy? 'When thou reapest thine harvest in thy field, and hast forgot a sheaf in the field, thou shalt not go again to fetch it: it shall be for the stranger, for the fatherless, and for the widow.' Is it not further forbidden to go over the boughs of thy olive-tree again, or to gather the fallen fruit of thy vineyard? You will admit that Moses would have added a prohibition against searching minutely the pockets of cast-off garments, were it not that for forty years our ancestors had to wander in the wilderness in the same clothes, which miraculously waxed with their growth. No, I feel sure you will respect the spirit of the law, for when I went down into your kitchen and examined the door-post to see if you had nailed up a mezuzah upon it, knowing that many Jews only flaunt mezuzahs on door-posts visible to visitors, it rejoiced me to find one below stairs."

      Grobstock's magnanimity responded to the appeal. It would be indeed petty to scrutinise his pockets, or to feel the linings for odd coins. After all he had Manasseh's promise to restore papers and everything of no value.

      "Well, well," he said pleasantly, consoled by the thought his troubles had now come to an end – for that day at least – "take them away as they are."

      "It is all very well to say take them away," replied Manasseh, with a touch of resentment, "but what am I to take them in?"

      "Oh – ah – yes! There must be a sack somewhere – "

      "And do you think I would carry them away in a sack? Would you have me look like an old clo' man? I must have a box. I see several in the box-room."

      "Very well," said Grobstock resignedly. "If there's an empty one you may have it."

      Manasseh laid his stick on the dressing-table and carefully examined the boxes, some of which were carelessly open, while every lock had a key sticking in it. They had travelled far and wide with Grobstock, who invariably combined pleasure with business.

      "There is none quite empty," announced the Schnorrer, "but in this one there are only a few trifles – a pair of galligaskins and such like – so that if you make me a present of them the box will be empty, so far as you are concerned."

      "All right," said Grobstock, and actually laughed. The nearer the departure of the Schnorrer, the higher his spirits rose.

      Manasseh dragged the box towards the bed, and then for the first time since his return from the under-regions, surveyed the medley of garments upon it.

      The light-hearted philanthropist, watching his face, saw it instantly change to darkness, like a tropical landscape. His own face grew white. The Schnorrer uttered an inarticulate cry, and turned a strange, questioning glance upon his patron.

      "What is it now?" faltered Grobstock.

      "I miss a pair of pantaloons!"

      Grobstock grew whiter. "Nonsense! nonsense!" he muttered.

      "I – miss – a – pair – of – pantaloons!" reiterated the Schnorrer deliberately.

      "Oh, no – you have all I can spare there," said Grobstock uneasily. The Schnorrer hastily turned over the heap.

      Then his eye flashed fire; he banged his fist on the dressing-table to accompany each staccato syllable.

      "I – miss – a – pair – of – pan – ta – loons!" he shrieked.

      The weak and ductile donor had a bad quarter of a minute.

      "Perhaps," he stammered at last, "you – m – mean – the new pair I found had got accidentally mixed up with them."

      "Of course I mean the new pair! And so you took them away! Just because I wasn't looking. I left the room, thinking I had to do with a man of honour. If you had taken an old pair I shouldn't have minded so much; but to rob a poor man of his brand-new breeches!"

      "I must have them," cried Grobstock irascibly. "I have to go to a reception to-morrow, and they are the only pair I shall have to wear. You see I – "

      "Oh, very well," interrupted the Schnorrer, in low, indifferent tones.

      After that there was a dead silence. The Schnorrer majestically folded some silk stockings and laid them in the box. Upon them he packed other garments in stern, sorrowful hauteur. Grobstock's soul began to tingle with pricks of compunction. Da Costa completed his task, but could not shut the overcrowded box. Grobstock silently seated his weighty person upon the lid. Manasseh neither resented nor welcomed him. When he had turned the key he mutely tilted the sitter off the box and shouldered it with consummate ease. Then he took his staff and strode from the room. Grobstock would have followed him, but the Schnorrer waved him back.

      "On Friday, then," the conscience-stricken magnate said feebly.

      Manasseh did