e a good character. The police
willingly took a glass at his counter, for which he always declined
payment. He paid his taxes regularly, and passed, indeed, for a friend
of the executive. On the first floor he kept a lodging-house for bearded
and beardless Jews. These gentlemen generally slipped in late and out
early. Besides such regular guests, others of every age, sex, and creed
arrived at irregular intervals. These had strictly private dealings with
the host, and showed a great objection to having a lucifer match struck
near their faces. The other lodgers took their own views of these
peculiarities, but judged it best to keep them to themselves. In this
house it was that Itzig went up a dark stair, and, groping along a dirty
wall, came to a heavy oaken door, with a massive bolt, and, after a good
push, entered a waste-looking room that ran the whole length of the
house. In the middle stood an old table with a wretched oil lamp, and
opposite the door a great partition, with several smaller doors, some of
which were open, and showed that the whole consisted of narrow
subdivisions, with hooks for hanging clothes. The small windows had
faded blinds, but on the opposite side of the room the twilight entered
through an open door that led to a wooden gallery running along the
outside of the house.

Itzig threw down his bundle and went out on this gallery, which he
viewed with much interest. Below him rolled a rapid stream of dirty
water, hemmed in on either side by dilapidated wooden houses, most of
which had similar galleries to every story. In olden times, the worthy
guild of dyers had inhabited this street, but now they had changed their
quarters, and instead of sheep and goat skins, there hung over the
worm-eaten railings only the clothes of the poor put out to dry. Their
colors contrasted strangely with the black woodwork; the light fell in a
remarkable way upon the rude carvings, and the dark posts that started
here and there out of the water. In short, it was a wretched place, save
for cats, painters, or poor devils.

Young Itzig had already been here more than once, but never alone. Now
he observed that a long, covered staircase led down from the gallery to
the water's edge, and that a similar one ran up to the next house,
whence he concluded that it would be possible to go from one house to
another without doing more than wetting the feet; also, that when the
water was low, one could walk along at the base of the