dozen years at comparatively trifling costs,
thanks to that happy idea of a new synagogue--you the representative of
the Kensington synagogue, with a 'Sir' for a colleague and a
congregation that from exceptionally small beginnings has sprung up to
be the most fashionable in London; likewise a member of the Council of
the Anglo-Jewish Association and an honorary officer of the _Shechitah_
Board; I, connected with several first-class charities, on the Committee
of our leading school, and the acknowledged discoverer of a girl who
gives promise of doing something notable in literature or music. We have
a reputation for wealth, culture and hospitality, and it is quite two
years since we shook off the last of the Maida Vale lot, who are so
graphically painted in that novel of Mr. Armitage's. Who are our guests
now? Take to-night's! A celebrated artist, a brilliant young Oxford man,
both scions of the same wealthy and well-considered family, an
authoress of repute who dedicates her books (by permission) to the very
first families of the community; and lastly the Montagu Samuels with the
brother, Percy Saville, who both go only to the best houses. Is there
any other house, where the company is so exclusively Jewish, that could
boast of a better gathering?"

"I don't say anything against the company," said her husband awkwardly,
"it's better than we got in the Provinces. But your company isn't your
constituency. What constituency would have me?"

"Certainly, no ordinary constituency would have you," admitted his wife
frankly. "I am thinking of Whitechapel."

"But Gideon represents Whitechapel."

"Certainly; as Sidney Graham says, he represents it very well. But he
has made himself unpopular, his name has appeared in print as a guest at
City banquets, where the food can't be _kosher_. He has alienated a
goodly proportion of the Jewish vote."

"Well?" said Mr. Goldsmith, still wonderingly.

"Now is the time to bid for his shoes. Raphael Leon is about to
establish a new Jewish paper. I was mistaken about that young man. You
remember my telling you I had heard he was eccentric and despite his
brilliant career a little touched on religious matters. I naturally
supposed his case was like that of one or two other Jewish young men we
know and that he yearned for spirituality, and his remarks at table
rather confirmed the impression. But he is worse than that--and I nearly
put my foot in it--his craziness is on the score of ortho