“Ah,” he said, “you see, I am faithful to my trust. Here is the lucre: count it and be satisfied that the sum is just. Really,” he added, dropping the mock theatrical manner he had assumed, “really, it was frightfully embarrassing yesterday. But I’m a victim of absentmindedness, and in changing my clothes I had omitted to transfer my pocket-book from the one suit to the other. I can’t tell you how much indebted I am for your considerateness. I suppose you are overrun with dead-beats who play that dodge regularly—eh?”
I gave him the answer his question called for, served him with the drinkables he ordered, and stationed, myself at a respectful distance.
He lighted his inevitable cigarette and produced his book. He read and smoked for a few moments in silence. Suddenly he flung the book angrily upon the table, pushed back his glass, and uttered an audible “Confound it!”
I hastened forward to learn the subject of his discomposure and to supply what remedy I might.
“I beg your pardon,” I ventured, “is there any thing wrong with the wine?”
“Eh—what?” he queried. “With the wine? Any thing wrong? Oh—I perceive. Oh, no—the wine s all right. It’s this beastly pedantic author. He is describing the Jewish ritual, and now just observe his idiocy. He goes on at a great rate about the beauty of a certain prayer—gets the reader’s curiosity all screwed up—and then—fancy his airs!—and then quotes the stuff in the original Hebrew! It’s ridiculous. He doesn’t even condescend to affix a translation in a foot-note. Look.”
He opened the book and pointed, with a finger dyed brown by tobacco-smoke, to the troublesome passage.
Now I, having been brought up as an orthodox Jew, had a smattering of Hebrew, and at a glance I saw that I could easily translate the few sentences in question. So, impulsively and without stopping to reflect that my conduct might seem officious, I said, “If you would like, I think perhaps I may be able to aid you.”
“What!” he exclaimed, fixing a pair of wide open eyes upon my face.
“The deuce!” he cried. “I didn’t suspect you were a scholar. How in the name of goodness did you learn Hebrew?”
“A scholar I am not, surely enough: but I am a Jew, and like the rest of my faith I studied Hebrew as a boy.”