Part 66 (1/2)

”No harm done. G.o.d bless you, I know the styles of all our chief speakers--ahem--ha!--pauperization of the East End, ha!--I would emphatically say that this scheme--ahem!--his lords.h.i.+p's untiring zeal for hum!--the welfare of--and so on. Ta dee dum da, ta, ra, rum dee.

They always send on the agenda beforehand. That's all I want, and I'll lay you twenty to one I'll turn out as good a report as any of our rivals. You rely on me for _that_! I know exactly how debates go. At the worst I can always swop with another reporter--a prize distribution for an obituary, or a funeral for a concert.”

”And do you really think we two between us can fill up the paper every week?” said Raphael doubtfully.

Little Sampson broke into a shriek of laughter, dropped his eyegla.s.s and collapsed helplessly into the coal-scuttle. The Committeemen looked up from their confabulations in astonishment.

”Fill up the paper! Ho! Ho! Ho!” roared little Sampson, still doubled up. ”Evidently _you've_ never had anything to do with papers. Why, the reports of London and provincial sermons alone would fill three papers a week.”

”Yes, but how are we to get these reports, especially from the provinces?”

”How? Ho! Ho! Ho!” And for some time little Sampson was physically incapable of speech. ”Don't you know,” he gasped, ”that the ministers always send up their own sermons, pages upon pages of foolscap?”

”Indeed?” murmured Raphael.

”What, haven't you noticed all Jewish sermons are eloquent?”.

”They write that themselves?”

”Of course; sometimes they put 'able,' and sometimes 'learned,' but, as a rule, they prefer to be 'eloquent.' The run on that epithet is tremendous. Ta dee dum da. In holiday seasons they are also very fond of 'enthralling the audience,' and of 'melting them to tears,' but this is chiefly during the Ten Days of Repentance, or when a boy is _Barmitzvah_. Then, think of the people who send in accounts of the oranges they gave away to distressed widows, or of the prizes won by their children at fourth-rate schools, or of the silver pointers they present to the synagogue. Whenever a reader sends a letter to an evening paper, he will want you to quote it; and, if he writes a paragraph in the obscurest leaflet, he will want you to note it as 'Literary Intelligence.' Why, my dear fellow, your chief task will be to cut down.

Ta, ra, ra, ta! Any Jewish paper could be entirely supported by voluntary contributions--as, for the matter of that, could any newspaper in the world.” He got up and shook the coal-dust languidly from his cloak.

”Besides, we shall all be helping you with articles,” said De Haan, encouragingly.

”Yes, we shall all be helping you,” said Ebenezer.

”I vill give you from the Pierian spring--bucketsful,” said Pinchas in a flush of generosity.

”Thank you, I shall be much obliged,” said Raphael, heartily, ”for I don't quite see the use of a paper filled up as Mr. Sampson suggests.”

He flung his arms out and drew them in again. It was a way he had when in earnest. ”Then, I should like to have some foreign news. Where's that to come from?”

”You rely on me for _that_,” said little Sampson, cheerfully. ”I will write at once to all the chief Jewish papers in the world, French, German, Dutch, Italian, Hebrew, and American, asking them to exchange with us. There is never any dearth of foreign news. I translate a thing from the Italian _Vessillo Israelitico_, and the _Israelitische Nieuwsbode_ copies it from us; _Der Israelit_ then translates it into German, whence it gets into Hebrew, in _Hamagid_, thence into _L'Univers Israelite_, of Paris, and thence into the _American Hebrew_. When I see it in American, not having to translate it, it strikes me as fresh, and so I transfer it bodily to our columns, whence it gets translated into Italian, and so the merry-go-round goes eternally on. Ta dee rum day.

You rely on me for your foreign news. Why, I can get you foreign telegrams if you'll only allow me to stick 'Trieste, December 21,' or things of that sort at the top. Ti, tum, tee ti.” He went on humming a sprightly air, then, suddenly interrupting himself, he said, ”but have you got an advertis.e.m.e.nt canva.s.ser, Mr. De Haan?”

”No, not yet,” said De Haan, turning around. The committee had resolved itself into animated groups, dotted about the office, each group marked by a smoke-drift. The clerks were still writing the ten thousand wrappers, swearing inaudibly.

”Well, when are you going to get him?”

”Oh, we shall have advertis.e.m.e.nts rolling in of themselves,” said De Haan, with a magnificent sweep of the arm. ”And we shall all a.s.sist in that department! Help yourself to another cigar, Sampson.” And he pa.s.sed Schlesinger's box. Raphael and Karlkammer were the only two men in the room not smoking cigars--Raphael, because he preferred his pipe, and Karlkammer for some more mystic reason.

”We must not ignore Cabalah,” the zealot's voice was heard to observe.

”You can't get advertis.e.m.e.nts by Cabalah,” drily interrupted Guedalyah, the greengrocer, a practical man, as everybody knew.

”No, indeed,” protested Sampson. ”The advertis.e.m.e.nt canva.s.ser is a more important man than the editor.”

Ebenezer p.r.i.c.ked up his ears.

”I thought _you_ undertook to do some canva.s.sing for your money,” said De Haan.