d:

"That was once the dwelling of old Isaac Nabal, known to his people as
Isaac the Moneylender, but styled by the Romans Isaac the Usurer. He was
enormously rich and loaned his gold at exorbitant rates to the
extravagant and impecunious Roman nobles. Isaac was wifeless and
childless, but so eager for gain was he that he kept his house
constantly filled with lodgers. The house was perhaps the oldest in all
the Ghetto. Strange noises were heard in it every night occasioned by
the falling of plaster or partition walls. It was no uncommon thing for
a lodger to be suddenly roused from his sleep by a crash and find
himself bruised and bleeding. Still old Isaac sturdily refused to make
repairs. He asserted that the rickety edifice would last as long as he
did, and he was not wrong, for one night it came down bodily about his
ears and he perished amid the ruins together with thirty others, all who
were in the aged rookery at the time. This catastrophe happened twenty
years ago."

"Do the houses often fall here?" asked M. Morrel, glancing uneasily
around him at the dilapidated buildings.

"Very often," answered the Count. "Age and decay will bring them all
down sooner or later."

"Then for Heaven's sake let us hasten lest we be crushed beneath some
sudden wreck!" said Maximilian. "The houses project over the street at
the upper stories until they almost join each other in mid air. If one
should fall there would be no escape!"

"Have no fear, Maximilian!" replied Monte-Cristo, smiling. "A famous
astrologer once assured me that I bore a charmed life, and if I escape
you will also!"

The ground floors of the houses were for the most part occupied as shops
of various kinds and the upper portions used as dwellings. Jewish
merchants stood at the doors of the shops and Jewish women, some of them
very beautiful, were occasionally seen at the upper windows. The streets
were thronged with pedestrians of both sexes and here and there groups
of chubby, black-haired children were at play.

Maximilian was amazed to notice that most of the men they met took off
their hats to Monte-Cristo and that some of them saluted him by name.

"You appear to be pretty well known to the Israelites," said he, at
length.

"Yes," answered the Count, "many of them know me. I have had frequent
occasion to consult with them on matters of importance. They are a
shrewd and trusty people."

By this time Monte-Cristo and M. Morrel had reached a lane na