le what articles will
suit: "This, think you? That, think you?" And intricately shuffles them
about, to Hirsch and back. Hirsch, singular to notice, holds fast by
that Protested Paris Bill; on frivolous pretexts, always forgets to
bring that: "May have its uses, that, in a Court of Justice yet!"
Meetings there are, almost daily, in the Voltaire Palace-Apartment;
DECEMBER 19th and DECEMBER 24th) there are Two DOCUMENTS (which we must
spare the reader, though he will hear of them again, as highly notable,
especially of one of them, as notable in the extreme!)--indicating the
abstrusest jewel-bargainings, scramblings, re-bargainings.

"My Jewels are truly valued!" asseverates Hirsch always: "Ephraim is my
enemy; ask Herr Reklam, chief Jeweller in Berlin, an impartial man!"
The meetings are occasionally of stormy character; Voltaire's patience
nearly out: "But did n't I return you that Topaz Ring, value 75 pounds?
And you have NOT deducted it; you--!" "One day, Picard and he pulled a
Ring [doubtless this Topaz] off my finger," says the pathetic Hirsch,
"and violently shoved me out of the room, slamming their door,"--and
sent me home, along the corridors, in a very scurvy humor! Thus, under a
skin of second settlement, there are two galvanic elements, getting ever
more galvanic, which no skin of settlement can prevent exploding before
long.

Explosion there accordingly was; most sad and dismal; which rang through
all the Court circles of Berlin; and, like a sound of hooting and of
weeping mixed, is audible over seas to this day. But let not the reader
insist on tracing the course of it henceforth. Klein, though faithful
and exact, is not a Pitaval; and we find in him errors of the press. The
acutest Actuary might spend weeks over these distracted Money-accounts,
and inconsistent Lists of Jewels bought and not bought; and would be
unreadable if successful. Let us say, The business catches fire at
this point; the Voltaire-Hirsch theatre is as if blown up into mere
whirlwinds of igneous rum and smoky darkness. Henceforth all plunges
into Lawsuit, into chaos of conflicting lies,--undecipherable, not worth
deciphering. Let us give what few glimpses of the thing are clearly
discernible at their successive dates, and leave the rest to picture
itself in the reader's fancy.

It appears, that Meeting of DECEMBER 24th, above alluded to, was
followed by another on Christmas-day, which proved the final one. Final
total explosion took