er," he said. "Wouldn't you like to
be in the green country to-day? Look how the sun shines."

It shone, indeed, with deceptive warmth, bathing in gold the green
country that stretched beyond, and dazzling the eyes of the dying boy.
The birds twittered outside the window. "Esther!" he said, wistfully,
"do you think there'll be another funeral soon?".

The matron burst into tears and turned away.

"Benjamin," cried the father, frantically, thinking the end had come,
"say the _Shemang_."

The boy stared at him, a clearer look in his eyes.

"Say the _Shemang_!" said Moses peremptorily. The word _Shemang_, the
old authoritative tone, penetrated the consciousness of the dying boy.

"Yes, father, I was just going to," he grumbled, submissively.

They repeated the last declaration of the dying Israelite together. It
was in Hebrew. "Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one." Both
understood that.

Benjamin lingered on a few more minutes, and died in a painless torpor.

"He is dead," said the doctor.

"Blessed be the true Judge," said Moses. He rent his coat, and closed
the staring eyes. Then he went to the toilet table and turned the
looking-glass to the wall, and opened the window and emptied the jug of
water upon the green sunlit grass.

CHAPTER XXI.

THE JARGON PLAYERS.

"No, don't stop me, Pinchas," said Gabriel Hamburg. "I'm packing up, and
I shall spend my Passover in Stockholm. The Chief Rabbi there has
discovered a manuscript which I am anxious to see, and as I have saved
up a little money I shall speed thither."

"Ah, he pays well, that boy-fool, Raphael Leon," said Pinchas, emitting
a lazy ring of smoke.

"What do you mean?" cried Gabriel, flushing angrily. "Do you mean,
perhaps, that _you_ have been getting money out of him?"

"Precisely. That is what I _do_ mean," said the poet naively. "What
else?"

"Well, don't let me hear you call him a fool. He _is_ one to send you
money, but then it is for others to call him so. That boy will be a
great man in Israel. The son of rich English Jews--a Harrow-boy, yet he
already writes Hebrew almost grammatically."

Pinchas was aware of this fact: had he not written to the lad (in
response to a crude Hebrew eulogium and a crisp Bank of England note):
"I and thou are the only two people in England who write the Holy Tongue
grammatically."

He replied now: "It is true; soon he will vie with me and you."

The old scholar took snuff impatient