ealth; it had suddenly dawned on his calculating
mind that a large sum of money was standing in the name of Rose
Summerhayes; he realised with the clearness of a revelation that there
were other fish than Rachel Varnhagen in the sea of matrimony.

The witching hour of lunch was near at hand. Isaac glanced at the clock,
the hands of which pointed to five minutes to twelve. As soon as the
clock above the Post Office sounded the hour, he left the counter, which
was immediately occupied by another clerk, and going to a little room in
the rear of the big building, he titivated his person before a small
looking-glass that hung on the wall, and then, putting on his immaculate
hat, he turned his back upon the cares of business for one hour.

His steps led him not in the direction of his victuals, but towards
the warehouse of Joseph Varnhagen. There was no hurry in his gait; he
sauntered down the street, his eyes observing everything, and with a
look of patronising good humour on his dark face, as though he would
say, "Really, you people are most amusing. Your style's awful, but I put
up with it because you know no better."

He reached the door of Varnhagen's store in precisely the same frame of
mind. The grimy, match-lined walls of the merchant's untidy office, the
litter of odds and ends upon the floor, the antiquated safe which stood
in one corner, all aroused his pity and contempt.

The old Jew came waddling from the back of the store, his body ovoid,
his bald head perspiring with the exertion he had put himself to in
moving a chest of tea.

"Well, my noble, vat you want to-day?" he asked, as he waddled to his
office-table, and placed upon it a packet of tea, intended for a sample.

"I just looked round to see how you were bobbing up."

"Bobbin' up, vas it? I don't bob up much better for seein' _you_. Good
cracious! I vas almost dead, with Packett ill with fever or sometings
from that ship outside, and me doin' all his vork and mine as well.
Don't stand round in my vay, ven you see I'm pizzy!" Young Isaac
leisurely took a seat by the safe, lighted a cigarette, and looked on
amusedly at the merchant's flurry.

"You try to do too much," he said. "You're too anxious to save wages.
What you want is a partner to keep your books, a young man with energy
who will look after your interests--and his own. You're just wearing
yourself to skin and bone; soon you'll go into a decline, and drop off
the hooks."

"Eh? Vat? A decli