Page:Zangwill-King of schnorrers.djvu/72

58 58 THE KING OF SCHNORRERS.

" Oh, indeed ! You'd swear to that in the box? "

" By my head. He gave it me."

" A seat in his box?"

" Yes."

"Mr. da Costa, you vos a-sayin', I think?"

"The same." •

" Ah ! this vay, then ! "

And the humorist pointed to the street.

Yankele did not budge.

"This vay, my lud ! " cried the little humorist peremptorily.

" I tells you I'm going into Mr. da Costa's box ! "

"And I tells you you're a-goin' into the gutter." And the official seized him by the scruff of the neck and began pushing him forwards with his knee.

" Now then ! what's this? "

A stern, angry voice broke like a thunderclap upon the humorist's ears. He released his hold of the Schnorrer and looked up, to behold a strange, shabby, stalwart figure towering over him in censorious majesty.

"Why are you hustling this poor man?" demanded Manasseh.

"He wanted to sneak in," the little Cockney replied, half apologetically, half resentfully. "Expect 'e 'ails from Saffron Til, and 'as 'is eye on the vipes. Told me some gammon — a cock-and-bull story about having a seat in a box."

"In Mr. da Costa's box, I suppose?" said Manasseh, ominously calm, with a menacing glitter in his eye.

"Ye-es," said the humorist, astonished and vaguely alarmed. Then the storm burst.

"You impertinent scoundrel! You jackanapes! You low, beggarly rapscallion ! And so you refused to show my guest into my box ! "