n, and possibly far-away ancestors who
denied themselves to be Jews; Buchan, the saddler, was Scotch; Pash,
the watchmaker, was a small, dark, vivacious, triple-baked Jew; Gideon,
the optical instrument maker, was a Jew of the red-haired,
generous-featured type easily passing for Englishmen of unusually
cordial manners: and Croop, the dark-eyed shoemaker, was probably more
Celtic than he knew. Only three would have been discernable everywhere
as Englishman: the wood-inlayer Goodwin, well-built, open-faced,
pleasant-voiced; the florid laboratory assistant Marrables; and Lily,
the pale, neat-faced copying-clerk, whose light-brown hair was set up
in a small parallelogram above his well-filled forehead, and whose
shirt, taken with an otherwise seedy costume, had a freshness that
might be called insular, and perhaps even something narrower.

Certainly a company select of the select among poor men, being drawn
together by a taste not prevalent even among the privileged heirs of
learning and its institutions; and not likely to amuse any gentleman in
search of crime or low comedy as the ground of interest in people whose
weekly income is only divisible into shillings. Deronda, even if he had
not been more than usually inclined to gravity under the influence of
what was pending between him and Mordecai, would not have set himself
to find food for laughter in the various shades of departure from the
tone of polished society sure to be observable in the air and talk of
these men who had probably snatched knowledge as most of us snatch
indulgences, making the utmost of scant opportunity. He looked around
him with the quiet air of respect habitual to him among equals, ordered
whisky and water, and offered the contents of his cigar-case, which,
characteristically enough, he always carried and hardly ever used for
his own behoof, having reasons for not smoking himself, but liking to
indulge others. Perhaps it was his weakness to be afraid of seeming
straight-laced, and turning himself into a sort of diagram instead of a
growth which can exercise the guiding attraction of fellowship. That he
made a decidedly winning impression on the company was proved by their
showing themselves no less at ease than before, and desirous of quickly
resuming their interrupted talk.

"This is what I call one of our touch-and-go nights, sir," said Miller,
who was implicitly accepted as a sort of moderator--on addressing
Deronda by way of explanation, and