or other--and, according to popular opinion, our
home be where our bed stands--Veitel was remarkably little at his home.
Whenever he could slip away from Ehrenthal's, he would wander about the
streets, and watch for such youths as were likely to buy from or sell to
him. He had always a few dollars to rattle in his pocket. He never
addressed the rawest of schoolboys but as a grown-up man; he was a
proficient in the art of bowing, could brighten up old brass and silver
as good as new, was always ready to buy old black coats, and possessed
the skill of giving them a degree of gloss which insured their selling
again.

With every bargain that he made for Ehrenthal he combined one for
himself, and soon won a reputation that excited the envy of gray-bearded
fripperers. He did not confine his activity to any one department
either, but became a horse-dealer's agent, the _employe_ of secret
money-lenders--nay, a money-lender himself. Then he had the faculty of
never getting tired, was all day on his feet, would run any length for a
few pence, and never resented a harsh word. He allowed himself no other
recreation than that of counting over his different transactions and
their probable results. He lived upon next to nothing; a slice or two of
bread abducted from Ehrenthal's kitchen would serve for his supper. Only
once during the first year of his town life did he allow himself a glass
of thin small beer, and that after a very profitable bargain.

He was always remarkably neat in his attire, considering it essential
that a man of business should bear the aspect of a gentleman. In short,
at the end of twelve months his six ducats had increased thirty fold.

He soon became indispensable in Mr. Ehrenthal's household. Nothing
escaped him. He never forgot a face, and was as familiar with the daily
state of the funds as any broker on 'Change. He still occupied the post
of errand-boy, blacked Bernhard's boots, and dined in the kitchen; but
it was plain that a stool in the office, which Ehrenthal kept for form's
sake, would ultimately be his. This was the goal of his ambition--the
paradise of his hopes. He soon saw that he only wanted three things to
attain to it--a more grammatical knowledge of German, finer caligraphy,
and an initiation into the mysteries of book-keeping, of which he as yet
knew nothing.

Meanwhile, he had become a distinguished man in his caravanserai, one
whom even Loebel Pinkus himself treated with respect. Veitel