r, as I should like to be; and in
the long run you may succeed him, as I should like to do. It is a good
business, my dear, a sound business, a business of which much, very
much, more might be made. You might die rich, very rich. You might be
mayor, you might be Member, you might--but what is the use? _You will
not._ You do not see it, though I am telling you. You will not wait for
it, though it would come. What is that book you hid when I came in?"

"It is about North American Indians," said I, dragging it forth. "I am
very sorry, but I left off last night at such an exciting bit."

The Jew was thumbing the pages, with his black ringlets close above
them.

"Novels in office-hours!" said he; but he was very good-natured about
it, and added, "I've one or two books at home, if you're fond of this
kind of reading, and will promise me not to forget your duties."

"Oh, I promise!" said I.

"I'll put them under my desk in the corner," he said; "indeed, I would
part with some of them for a trifle."

I thanked him warmly, but what he had said was still hanging in my mind,
and I added, "Are there real prophets among the Jews now-a-days, Mr.
Benson?"

"They will make nothing by it, if there are," said he; and there was a
tone of mysteriousness in his manner of speaking which roused my
romantic curiosity. "A few of ush (very few, my dear!) mould our own
fates, and the lives of the rest are moulded by what men have within
them rather than by what they find without. If there were a true prophet
in every market-place to tell each man of his future, it would not alter
the destinies of seven men in thish wide world."

As Moses spoke the swing door was pushed open, and one of my uncle's
clients entered. He was an influential man, and a very tall one. The Jew
bent his ringlets before him, almost beneath his elbow, and slipped out
as he came in.

CHAPTER XIII.

"Then, hey for boot and horse, lad,
And round the world away!
Young blood must have its course, lad,
And every dog his day."--C. KINGSLEY.

Moses Benson was as good as his word in the matter of books of
adventure. Dirty books, some without backs, and some with very greasy
ones (for which, if I bought them, I seldom paid more than half-price),
but full of dangers and discoveries, the mightiness of manhood, and the
wonders of the world. I read them at odd moments of my working hours,
and dreamed of them when I went home to bed. And it