it--kept
straight on. "Jack's all right inside, or I wouldn't love him, but there
are a good many things he has got to learn, and you happen to be one of
them."

Cohen lay back in his chair and laughed heartily.

"Do not mind him, Mr. Breen,--do not mind a word he says. He mortifies
me that same way. And now--" here he turned his head to Peter--"what
does he think of my race?"

"Oh! He thinks you are a lot of money-getters and pawnbrokers, gouging
the poor and squeezing the rich."

Jack broke out into a cold perspiration: "Really, Uncle Peter! Now,
Mr. Cohen, won't you please believe that I never said one word of it,"
exclaimed Jack in pleading tones, his face expressing his embarrassment.

"I never said you did, Jack," rejoined Peter with mock solemnity in his
voice. "I said you THOUGHT so. And now here he is,--look at him. Does he
look like Scrooge or Shylock or some old skinflint who--" here he faced
Cohen, his eyes brimming with merriment--"What are we going to do with
this blasphemer, Isaac? Shall we boil him in oil as they did that old
sixteenth-century saint you were telling me about the other night, or
shall we--?"

The little tailor threw out his hands--each finger an exclamation
point--and laughed heartily, cutting short Peter's tirade.

"No--no--we do none of these dreadful things to Mr. Breen; he is too
good to be a saint," and he patted Jack's knees--"and then again it
is only the truth. Mr. Breen is quite right; we are a race of
money-getters, and we are also the world's pawnbrokers and will always
be. Sometimes we make a loan on a watch or a wedding ring to keep
some poor soul from starving; sometimes it is a railroad to give a
millionaire a yacht, or help buy his wife a string of pearls. It is
quite the same, only over one shop we hang three gilt balls: on the
other we nail a sign which reads: 'Financial Agents.' And it is the
same Jew, remember, who stands behind both counters. The first Jew is
overhauled almost every day by the police; the second Jew is regarded
as our public-spirited citizen. So you see, my young friend, that it is
only a question of the amount of money you have got whether you loan on
rings or railroads."

"And whether the Christian lifts his hat or his boot," laughed Peter.

Cohen leaned his elbows on his plump knees and went on, the slender
glass still in his hand, from which now and then he took a sip. Peter
sat buried in his chair, his cigar between his fingers. Jack