Davenport Dunn, a Man of Our Day. Volume 2

“I know,” muttered he to himself, “that she thinks me a confounded fool; but I ain’t. Many a fellow in the ring made that mistake, and burned his fingers for it after.”

“Well,” said she, after a moment or so of thought, “I am ready; at least, I shall be ready very soon. I ‘ll tell Annette to pack up and prepare for the road.”

“I wish I could get you to have some better opinion of me, Miss Lizzy,” said he, seriously. “I’d give more than I ‘d like to say, that you ‘d – you ‘d – ”

“That I’d what?” asked she, calmly.

“That you ‘d not set me down as a regular flat,” said he, with energy.

“I ‘m not very certain that I know what that means; but I will tell you that I think you very good tempered, very gentle-natured, and very tolerant of fifty-and-one caprices which must be all the more wearisome because unintelligible. And then, you are a very fine gentleman, and – the Honor-Able Annesley Beecher.” And holding out her dress in minuet fashion, she courtesied deeply, and left the room.

“I wish any one would tell me whether I stand to win or not by that book,” exclaimed Beecher, as he stood there alone, nonplussed and confounded. “Would n’t she make a stunning actress! By Jove! Webster would give her a hundred a week, and a free benefit!” And with this he went off into a little mental arithmetic, at the end of which he muttered to himself, “And that does not include starring it in the provinces!”

With the air of a man whose worldly affairs went well, he arranged his hair before the glass, put on his hat, gave himself a familiar nod, and went out.

CHAPTER IV. LAZARUS, STEIN, GELDWECHSLER

The Juden Gasse, in which Beecher was to find out the residence of Lazarus Stein, was a long, straggling street, beginning in the town and ending in the suburb, where it seemed as it were to lose itself. It was not till after a long and patient search that Beecher discovered a small door in an old ivy-covered wall, on which, in irregular letters, faint and almost illegible, stood the words, “Stein, Geldwechsler.”

As he rang stoutly at the bell, the door opened, apparently of itself, and admitted him into a large and handsome garden. The walks were flanked by fruit-trees in espalier, with broad borders of rich flowers at either side; and although the centre spaces were given up to the uses of a kitchen garden, the larger beds, rich in all the colors of the tulip and ranunculus, showed how predominant was the taste for flowers over mere utility. Up one alley, and down another, did Beecher saunter without meeting any one, or seeing what might mean a habitation; when, at length, in a little copse of palm-trees, he caught sight of a smalt diamond-paned window, approaching which, he found himself in front of a cottage whose diminutive size he had never seen equalled, save on the stage. Indeed, in its wooden framework, gaudily painted, its quaint carvings, and its bamboo roof, it was the very type of what one sees in a comic opera. One sash of the little window lay open, and showed Beecher the figure of a very small old man, who, in a long dressing-gown of red-brown stuff, and a fez cap, was seated at a table, writing. A wooden tray in front of him was filled with dollars and gold pieces in long stately columns, and a heap of bank-notes lay pressed under a heavy leaden slab at his side. No sooner had Beecher’s figure darkened the window than the old man looked up and came out to meet him, and, taking off his cap with a deep reverence, invited him to enter. If the size of the chamber, and its curious walls covered over with cabinet pictures, might have attracted Beecher’s attention at another moment, all his wonderment, now, was for the little man himself, whose piercing black eyes, long beard, and hooked nose gave him an air of almost unearthly meaning.

“I suppose I have the honor to speak to Mr. Stein?” said he, in English, “and that he can understand me in my own tongue?”

“Yaas, – go on,” said the old man.

“I was told to call upon you by Captain Davis; he gave me your address.”

“Ah, der Davis – der Davis – a vaary goot man – my vaary dear friend. You are der rich Englander that do travel wit him, – eh?”

“I am travelling with him just now,” said Beecher, laughing slightly; “but as to being rich, – why, we ‘ll not dispute about it.”

“Yaas, here is his letter. He says, Milord will call on you hisself, and so I hold myself – how you say ‘bereit?’ – ready – hold myself ready to see you. I have de honor to make you very mush welcome to my poor house.”

Beecher thanked him courteously, and, producing Davis’s letter, mentioned the amount for which he desired to draw.

The old man examined the writing, the signature, and then the seal, handing the document back when he had finished, muttering to himself, “Ah, der Davis – der Davis!”

“You know my friend very intimately, I believe?” asked Beecher.

“I belief I do, – I belief I do,” said he, with a low chuckle to himself.

“So he mentioned to me and added one or two little matters on which I was to ask you for some information. But first this bill, – you can let me have these two thousand florins?”

“And what do he do now, der Davis?” asked the Jew, not heeding the question.

“Well, I suppose he rubs on pretty much the same as ever,” said Beecher, in some confusion.

“Yaas – yaas – he rub on – and he rub off, too, sometimes – ha! ha! ha!” laughed out the old man, with a fiendish cackle. “Ach, der Davis!”

Without knowing in what sense to take the words, Beecher did not exactly like them; and as little was he pleased with that singular recurrence to “der Davis,” and the little sigh that followed. He was growing impatient, besides, to get his money, and again reverted to the question.

“He look well? I hope he have de goot gesundheit – what you call it?”

“To be sure he does; nothing ever ails him. I never heard him complain of as much as a headache.

“Ach, der Davis, der Davis!” said the old man, shaking his head.

Seeing no chance of success by his direct advances, Beecher thought he ‘d try a little flank attack by inducing a short conversation, and so he said, “I am on my way to Davis, now, with his daughter, whom he left in my charge.”

“Whose daughter?” asked the Jew.

“Davis’s, – a young lady that was educated at Brussels.”

“He have no daughter. Der Davis have no daughter.”

“Has n’t he, though? Just come over to the ‘Four Nations,’ and I ‘ll show her to you. And such a stunning girl too!”

“No, no, I never belief it – never; he did never speak to me of a daughter.”

“Whether he did or not – there she is, that’s all I know.”

The Jew shook his head, and sought refuge in his former muttering of “Ach, der Davis!”

“As far as not telling you about his daughter, I can say he never told me, and I fancy we were about as intimate as most people; but the fact is as I tell you.”

Another sigh was all his answer, and Beecher was fast reaching the limit of his patience.

“Daughter, or no daughter, I want a matter of a couple of thousand florins, – no objection to a trifle more, of course, – and wish to know how you can let me have them.”

“The Margraf was here two week ago, and he say to me, ‘Lazarus,’ say he, – ‘Lazarus, where is your goot friend Davis?’ ‘Highness,’ say I, ‘dat I know not.’ Den he say, ‘I will find him, if I go to Jerusalem;’ and I say, ‘Go to Jerusalem.’”

“What did he want with him?”

“What he want? – what every one want, and what nobody get, except how he no like – ha! ha! ha! Ach, der Davis!”

Beecher rose from his seat, uncertain how to take this continued inattention to his demand. He stood for a moment in hesitation, his eyes wandering over the walls where the pictures were hanging.

“Ah! if you do care for art, now you suit yourself, and all for a noting! I sell all dese, – dat Gerard Dow, dese two Potters, de leetle Cuyp, – a veritable treasure, and de Mieris, – de best he ever painted, and de rest, wit de land-schaft of Both, for eighty tousand seven hundred florins. It is a schenk – a gift away – noting else.”

“You forget, my excellent friend Stein,” said Beecher, with more assurance than he had yet assumed, “that it was to receive and not spend money I came here this morning.”

“You do a leetle of all de two – a leetle of both, so to say,” replied the Jew. “What moneys you want?”

“Come, this is speaking reasonably. Davis’s letter mentions a couple of thousand florins; but if you are inclined to stretch the amount to five, or even four thousand, we ‘ll not fall out about the terms.”

“How you mean – no fall out about de terms?” said the other, sharply.

“I meant that for a stray figure or so, in the way of discount, we should n’t disagree. You may, in fact, make your own bargain.”