, and handed it across the counter; and then,
after gloating, as it were, over the changed expression of the Jew's
features, he handed a second, and a third.

"These are good papers, Herr von Dalton; no better! The exchange, too,
is in your favor; we are giving--let me see--ten and three-eighths
'Convenzions-Gelt'."

"To the devil I fling your three-eighths!" cried Dalton. "I never forgot
the old song at school that says, 'Fractions drives me mad.'"

"Ah, always droll,----always merry!" cackled out Abel. "How will you
have these moneys?"

"In a bag,----a good strong canvas-bag!"

"Yes, to be sure, in a bag; but I was asking how you 'd have them. I
mean, in what coin,--in what for 'Gelt.'"

"Oh, that's it!" cried Dalton. "Well, give me a little of everything.
Let me have 'Louis' to spend, and 'Gros-chen' to give the beggars.
Bank-notes, too, I like; one feels no regretting parting with the dirty
paper that neither jingles nor shines: and a few crown pieces, Abel; the
ring of them on a table is like a brass band!"

"So you shall,--so you shall, Herr von Dalton. Ha, ha, ha! you are the
only man ever make me laugh!"

"By my conscience, then, it's more than you deserve, Abel; for you've
very often nearly made _me_ cry," said Dalton, with a little sigh over
the past, as he recalled it to his memory.

The Jew did not either heed or hear the remark; for, having put away the
remnant of his frugal breakfast, he now began a very intricate series of
calculations respecting interest and exchange and commission, at which
poor Dalton gazed in a most complete mystification.

"Fourteen hundred and sixty-three, at ten three-eighths,--less cost of
commission; I will not charge you the one per cent--"

"Charge all that's fair, and no favor, old boy."

"I mean that I will not treat the Herr von Dalton like a stranger----"

"I was going to say, treat me like a Christian," said Dalton, laughing;
"but maybe that's the most expensive thing going."

"Always droll,--always have his jest," cackled Abel. "Now there's an
agio on gold, you pay five kreutzers for every Louis."

"By George! I 'll take a ship-load of them at the same price."

"Ha! U mean you pay that over the value," said the Jew.

"Faix! I often promised to pay more," said Dalton, sighing; "and what's
worse, on stamped paper too!"

As the Jew grew deeper in his figures, Dalton rambled on about Ireland
and her prospects, for he wished it to be supposed that his pres