CHAPTER III.
AT CLOSING TIME
A talk in a niche beside a window of the Café Wögerer, opposite the Stock Exchange, between Herr Strauss, proprietor of a banking house, and his nephew, Siegfried Steiner, a medical student. Similar conversations were taking place at every table; and on this day, far from being boisterous, they were carried on almost inaudibly, with much gesturing.
The young man was shaking his uncle’s hand.
“I thank you, dear Uncle, for promising to take me to London with you. That’s a great consolation for me, for, between ourselves--Jerusalem--never! Not for me! Nothing but Jews--I can’t imagine it!”
The uncle smiled a slow smile. “I don’t give a rap about Jerusalem myself. In London I’ll go into partnership with my old friend Moe Seegward, who has a fine brokerage house there.”
Siegfried Steiner leaned forward and whispered: “I’d like to know one thing, Uncle. You surely didn’t enter the actual amount of your fortune and income in your tax report. So how are you going to get your money over there, considering that since yesterday all our letters are being censored?”
The uncle let the ashes of his cigar fall on his vest.
“_Chammer!_ Why does one have Christian friends? I went to see Schuster, the manufacturer, today; and, confidentially I gave him a billion in securities and cash, for which he gave me a draft on a London bank. Of course the _ganef_ doesn’t do it for nothing, but makes quite a bit on this transaction.”
The nephew nodded with satisfaction; and at thirty other tables various other conversations also ended with nods of satisfaction.
An old Jew in a caftan, and with cork-screw curls, came in and went from table to table, repeating his little speech: “Give alms to an old Jew who lost everything he had in the Lemberg pogrom!”
Someone called from one of the tables: “Tell me, old man, where’ll you go now?”
The old fellow wagged his head. “_Herrleben_, if I could get out of the burning Lemberg Ghetto and reach Vienna, I guess I’ll find some place to go to from Vienna. It’s all the same to me whether I _schnorr_ in Vienna, or Berlin, or Paris. Only I won’t talk about the pogrom any more, but I’ll tell ’em how they threw out an old Jew like me.--Tell me, _Herrleben_, do you think it’s good to buy Siemens before the Exchange closes?”