is a costly garment; divide the original price of it by the
number of times I have worn it and I find it has cost me about ten
dollars an evening. Perhaps this old-clothes dealer will pay me a fair
price for it; Jew though he be, he may be possessed of the heart of a
Christian!"

Alas and alack! All of Clitheroe's sufferings could be traced to the
cool, calculating hardness of the Christian's heart. Probably it was
prejudice alone that caused him to trust the Christian, and distrust the
Jew.

From day to day he passed the shop, striving to muster courage enough to
enter and propose his bargain. At first he had imagined the dealer
offering him but ten dollars for the coat--it had cost him a goodly sum;
a little later he concluded that ten dollars was too little for any one
to offer him; he might take twenty; a day later thirty seemed to him a
probable offer, and shortly after he imagined himself consenting to
receive fifty dollars, since the coat was in such admirable repair.

One day he took it to the dealer; he was not cordially welcomed by the
man in shirt sleeves, with whom of late he had held innumerable
imaginary conversations. The shop was extremely small and dark; the odor
of dead garments pervaded it. With an earnest and kindly glance, Paul
invited the sympathy of Abraham the son of Moses who was the son of
Isaac; he saw nothing but speculation in those eyes. His coat was
examined and tossed aside, as possessing few attractions. Clitheroe's
heart sunk within him; and it sank deeper and deeper as it began to
dawn upon him that the Hebrew had no wish to possess the garment, and,
if he did so, he did so only to oblige the Christian youth. A bargain
was at last struck; Paul departed with five dollars in his pocket--his
dress-coat was a thing of the past.

What could he do next to extricate himself from his dubious dilemma? He
had a small gold watch, a precious souvenir: "Gold is gold," said he,
"and worth its weight in gold." He had the address of one who was known
far and wide as "Uncle." He had heard of persons of the highest
respectability seeking this uncle when close pressed, and there finding
temporary relief at the hands of one who is in some respects a good
Samaritan in disguise. Paul found it absolutely impossible for him to
enter the not unattractive front of this establishment but there was a
"private entrance" in a small dark alley-way; so delicate is the
consideration of an uncle whose business it i