Part 45 (2/2)

”'Tain't Ikey!” sobbed Sarah. ”Little Tharah wants 'er dinner.”

”Thou hearest?” said Moses pitifully. ”How can we spare the money?”

”How much is it?” asked Esther.

”It will be a s.h.i.+lling each there and back,” replied Moses, who from his long periods of peregrination was a connoisseur in fares. ”How can we afford it when I lose a morning's work into the bargain?”

”No, what talkest thou?” said Esther. ”Thou art looking a few months ahead--thou deemest perhaps, I am already twelve. It will be only sixpence for me.”

Moses did not disclaim the implied compliment to his rigid honesty but answered:

”Where is my head? Of course thou goest half-price. But even so where is the eighteenpence to come from?”

”But it is not eighteenpence!” e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Esther with a new inspiration.

Necessity was sharpening her wits to extraordinary acuteness. ”We need not take return tickets. We can walk back.”

”But we cannot be so long away from the mother--both of us,” said Moses.

”She, too, is ill. And how will the children do without thee? I will go by myself.”

”No, I must see Benjy!” Esther cried.

”Be not so stiff-necked, Esther! Besides, it stands in the letter that I am to come--they do not ask thee. Who knows that the great people will not be angry if I bring thee with me? I dare say Benjamin will soon be better. He cannot have been ill long.”

”But, quick, then, father, quick!” cried Esther, yielding to the complex difficulties of the position. ”Go at once.”

”Immediately, Esther. Wait only till I have finished my prayers. I am nearly done.”

”No! No!” cried Esther agonized. ”Thou prayest so much--G.o.d will let thee off a little bit just for once. Thou must go at once and ride both ways, else how shall we know what has happened? I will p.a.w.n my new prize and that will give thee money enough.”

”Good!” said Moses. ”While thou art pledging the book I shall have time to finish _davening_.” He hitched up his _Talith_ and commenced to gabble off, ”Happy are they who dwell in Thy house; ever shall they praise Thee, Selah,” and was already saying, ”And a Redeemer shall come unto Zion,” by the time Esther rushed out through the door with the pledge. It was a gaudily bound volume called ”Treasures of Science,” and Esther knew it almost by heart, having read it twice from gilt cover to gilt cover. All the same, she would miss it sorely. The p.a.w.nbroker lived only round the corner, for like the publican he springs up wherever the conditions are favorable. He was a Christian; by a curious anomaly the Ghetto does not supply its own p.a.w.nbrokers, but sends them out to the provinces or the West End. Perhaps the business instinct dreads the solicitation of the racial.

Esther's p.a.w.nbroker was a rubicund portly man. He knew the fortunes of a hundred families by the things left with him or taken back. It was on his stuffy shelves that poor Benjamin's coat had lain compressed and packed away when it might have had a beautiful airing in the grounds of the Crystal Palace. It was from his stuffy shelves that Esther's mother had redeemed it--a day after the fair--soon to be herself compressed and packed away in a pauper's coffin, awaiting in silence whatsoever Redemption might be. The best coat itself had long since been sold to a ragman, for Solomon, upon whose back it devolved, when Benjamin was so happily translated, could never be got to keep a best coat longer than a year, and when a best coat is degraded to every-day wear its attrition is much more than six times as rapid.

”Good mornen, my little dear,” said the rubicund man. ”You're early this mornen.” The apprentice had, indeed, only just taken down the shutters.

”What can I do for you to-day? You look pale, my dear; what's the matter?”

”I have a bran-new seven and sixpenny book,” she answered hurriedly, pa.s.sing it to him.

He turned instinctively to the fly-leaf.

”Bran-new book!” he said contemptuously. ”'Esther Ansell--For improvement!' When a book's spiled like that, what can you expect for it?”

”Why, it's the inscription that makes it valuable,” said Esther tearfully.

”Maybe,” said the rubicund man gruffly. ”But d'yer suppose I should just find a buyer named Esther Ansell?” Do you suppose everybody in the world's named Esther Ansell or is capable of improvement?”

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