had been the victim; the
keen competition of the parents of daughters for the hand of so
renowned an infant prodigy, who could talk theology as crookedly as a
graybeard. His own boyish liking for Pessel, the rich rent-farmer's
daughter, had been rudely set aside when her sister fell down a cellar
and broke her leg. Solomon must marry the damaged daughter, the
rent-farmer had insisted to the learned boy's father, who had replied
as pertinaciously, "No, I want the straight-legged sister."

The poor young man writhed afresh at the thought of his father's
obstinacy. True, Rachael had a hobble in her leg, but as he had
discovered years later when a humble tutor in her family, she was an
amiable creature, and as her father had offered to make him joint heir
to his vast fortune, he would have been settled for life, wallowing in
luxury and learning. But no! his father was bent upon having Pessel,
and so he, Solomon, had been beggared by his father's fastidious
objection to a dislocated bone.

Alas, how misfortune had dogged him! There was that wealthy scholar of
Schmilowitz who fell in love with his fame, and proposed for him by
letter without ever having seen him. What a lofty epistle his father
had written in reply, a pastiche of Biblical verses and Talmudical
passages, the condition of consent neatly quoted from "The Song of
Solomon," "Thou, O Solomon, must have a thousand pieces of silver, and
those that keep the fruit thereof two hundred!" A dowry of a thousand
guldens for the boy, and two hundred for the father! The terms of the
Canticles had been accepted, his father had journeyed to Schmilowitz,
seen his daughter-in-law, and drawn up the marriage-contract. The two
hundred guldens for himself had been paid him on the nail, and he had
even insisted on having four hundred.

In vain, "Here is your letter," the scholar had protested, "you only
asked for two hundred."

"True," he had replied; "but that was only not to spoil the beautiful
quotation."

How joyously he had returned home with the four hundred guldens for
himself, the wedding-presents for his little Solomon--a cap of black
velvet trimmed with gold lace, a Bible bound in green velvet with
silver clasps, and the like.

The heart-broken tramp saw the innocent boy that had once been he,
furtively strutting about in his velvet cap, rehearsing the
theological disputation he was to hold at the wedding-table, and
sniffing the cakes and preserves his mother was pr