r
a couple of terms to Jews' College. Oh, yes, you remember! Why, I was
there when you were a school-teacher and got taken up by the swells. But
our stroke of fortune came soon after yours. Did you never hear of it?
My, you must have dropped all your old acquaintances if no one ever told
you that! Why, father came in for a couple of thousand pounds! I thought
I'd make you stare. Guess who from?"

"I give it up," said Esther.

"Thank you. It was never yours to give," said Leonard, laughing jovially
at his wit. "Old Steinwein--you remember his death. It was in all the
papers; the eccentric old buffer, who was touched in the upper story,
and used to give so much time and money to Jewish affairs, setting up
lazy old rabbis in Jerusalem to shake themselves over their Talmuds. You
remember his gifts to the poor--six shillings sevenpence each because he
was seventy-nine years old and all that. Well, he used to send the
pater a basket of fruit every _Yomtov_. But he used to do that to every
Rabbi, all around, and my old man had not the least idea he was the
object of special regard till the old chap pegged out. Ah, there's
nothing like Torah, after all."

"You don't know what you may have lost through not becoming a minister,"
suggested Esther slily.

"Ah, but I know what I've gained. Do you think I could stand having my
hands and feet tied with phylacteries?" asked Leonard, becoming vividly
metaphoric in the intensity of his repugnance to the galling bonds of
orthodoxy. "Now, I do as I like, go where I please, eat what I please.
Just fancy not being able to join fellows at supper, because you mustn't
eat oysters or steak? Might as well go into a monastery at once. All
very well in ancient Jerusalem, where everybody was rowing in the same
boat. Have you ever tasted pork, Esther?"

"No," said Esther, with a faint smile.

"I have," said Leonard. "I don't say it to boast, but I have had it
times without number. I didn't like it the first time--thought it would
choke me, you know, but that soon wears off. Now I breakfast off ham and
eggs regularly. I go the whole hog, you see. Ha! ha! ha!"

"If I didn't see from your card you're not living at home, that would
have apprised me of it," said Esther.

"Of course, I couldn't live at home. Why the guvnor couldn't bear to let
me shave. Ha! ha! ha! Fancy a religion that makes you keep your hair on
unless you use a depilatory. I was articled to a swell solicitor. The
old man resis