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148 148 THE KING OF SCHNORRERS.

again, and swore that the carriage was hired, to be paid for out of the ten pounds.

"Hired?" echoed Manasseh resentfully. "Do you not recognise the arms of my friend, Beau Belasco?" And he presently drove off with the note, for Rodriques had a roguish eye. And then, parting with the chariot, the King took his way on foot to Fenchurch Street, to the house of his cousin Barzillai, the ex-planter of Barbadoes, and now a West Indian merchant.

Barzillai, fearing humiliation before his clerks, always car- ried his relative off to the neighbouring Franco's Head Tav- ern, and humoured him with costly liquors.

" But you had no right to donate money you did not possess ; it was dishonest," he cried with irrepressible ire.

" Hoity toity ! " said Manasseh, setting down his glass so vehemently that the stem shivered. " And were you not called to the Law after me? And did you not donate money? "

" Certainly ! But I had the money."

"What! ft?rtyou?"

" No, no, certainly not. I do not carry money on the Sabbath."

" Exactly. Neither do I."

" But the money was at my bankers'."

" And so it was at mine. You are my bankers, you and others like you. You draw on your bankers — I draw on mine." And his cousin being thus confuted, Manasseh had not much further difficulty in wheedling two pounds ten out of him.

" And now," said he, " I really think you ought to do something to lessen the Synagogue's loss."

" But I have just given ! " quoth Barzillai in bewilderment.

" That you gave to me as your cousin, to enable your