scarecrows in
battered hats or draggled skirts. But gradually, as the scene grew upon
her, she perceived that in spite of the "model dwellings" builder, it
was essentially unchanged. No vestige of improvement had come over
Wentworth Street: the narrow noisy market street, where serried barrows
flanked the reeking roadway exactly as of old, and where Esther trod on
mud and refuse and babies. Babies! They were everywhere; at the breasts
of unwashed women, on the knees of grandfathers smoking pipes, playing
under the barrows, sprawling in the gutters and the alleys. All the
babies' faces were sickly and dirty with pathetic, childish prettinesses
asserting themselves against the neglect and the sallowness. One female
mite in a dingy tattered frock sat in an orange-box, surveying the
bustling scene with a preternaturally grave expression, and realizing
literally Esther's early conception of the theatre. There was a sense of
blankness in the wanderer's heart, of unfamiliarity in the midst of
familiarity. What had she in common with all this mean wretchedness,
with this semi-barbarous breed of beings? The more she looked, the more
her heart sank. There was no flaunting vice, no rowdiness, no
drunkenness, only the squalor of an oriental city without its quaintness
and color. She studied the posters and the shop-windows, and caught old
snatches of gossip from the groups in the butchers' shops--all seemed as
of yore. And yet here and there the hand of Time had traced new
inscriptions. For Baruch Emanuel the hand of Time had written a new
placard. It was a mixture of German, bad English and Cockneyese,
phonetically spelt in Hebrew letters:

Mens Solen Und Eelen, 2/6
Lydies Deeto, 1/6
Kindersche Deeto, 1/6
Hier wird gemacht
Aller Hant Sleepers
Fur Trebbelers
Zu De Billigsten Preissen.

Baruch Emanuel had prospered since the days when he wanted "lasters and
riveters" without being able to afford them. He no longer gratuitously
advertised _Mordecai Schwartz_ in envious emulation, for he had several
establishments and owned five two-story houses, and was treasurer of his
little synagogue, and spoke of Socialists as an inferior variety of
Atheists. Not that all this bourgeoning was to be counted to leather,
for Baruch had developed enterprises in all directions, having all the
versatility of Moses Ansell without his catholic capacity for failure.

The hand of Time had also constructed a "working-men'