"Business, gentlemen, business."

"Come, then! I'll challenge you to translate a page of _Metatoron's
Flames_," said Pinchas, skipping about the office like a sprightly flea.
"You know no more than the Reverend Joseph Strelitski vith his vite tie
and his princely income."

De Haan seized the poet by the collar, swung him off his feet and tucked
him up in the coal-scuttle.

"Yah!" croaked Ebenezer. "Here's a fine editor. Ho! Ho! Ho!"

"We cannot have either of them. It's the only way to keep them quiet,"
said the furniture-dealer who was always failing.

Ebenezer's face fell and his voice rose.

"I don't see why I should be sacrificed to _'im_. There ain't a man in
England who can write English better than me. Why, everybody says so.
Look at the success of my book, _The Old Burgomaster_, the best Dutch
novel ever written. The _St. Pancras Press_ said it reminded them of
Lord Lytton, it did indeed. I can show you the paper. I can give you one
each if you like. And then it ain't as if I didn't know 'Ebrew, too.
Even if I was in doubt about anything, I could always go to my father.
You give me this paper to manage and I'll make your fortunes for you in
a twelvemonth; I will as sure as I stand here."

Pinchas had made spluttering interruptions as frequently as he could in
resistance of De Haan's brawny, hairy hand which was pressed against his
nose and mouth to keep him down in the coal-scuttle, but now he exploded
with a force that shook off the hand like a bottle of soda water
expelling its cork.

"You Man-of-the-Earth," he cried, sitting up in the coal-scuttle. "You
are not even orthodox. Here, my dear gentlemen, is the very position
created by Heaven for me--in this disgraceful country where genius
starves. Here at last you have the opportunity of covering yourselves
vid eternal glory. Have I not given you the idea of starting this paper?
And vas I not born to be a Redacteur, a Editor, as you call it? Into the
paper I vill pour all the fires of my song--"

"Yes, burn it up," croaked Ebenezer.

"I vill lead the Freethinkers and the Reformers back into the fold. I
vill be Elijah and my vings shall be quill pens. I vill save Judaism."
He started up, swelling, but De Haan caught him by his waistcoat and
readjusted him in the coal-scuttle.

"Here, take another cigar, Pinchas," he said, passing Schlesinger's
private box, as if with a twinge of remorse for his treatment of one he
admired as a poet though he could n