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192 native Lower Saxony had considerable similarity in customs and ideas with your native land; in one thing, however, they are very different, and that is in their treatment of the Jews. In my pious town they never would have suffered one of the children of Abraham to equip a ship and send it to sea in the name of 'the Jew;' is not the Northern Ocean Christian water? So the sea has overwhelmed the Jews first. I heard from my window this morning an old sailor telling his comrades that it all came of associating with Jews."

Baruch had risen when the stranger entered, he had put his book under his arm, and would have taken leave of Olympia; twice he would have bowed, but as the stranger stood between she did not see him; he advanced again, but again the stranger interposed between him and Olympia.

"I must explain," continued the stranger, "why I have come at so unusual an hour. You are going to the Rederykers Kamer this evening, of course. I wanted to remind you to go to the Botanical Garden first; you will see what you have probably never seen before, a palm-tree in bloom; the flowers are so large that ten families of elves could easily live therein."

Here was another pause, and Baruch at last