"Good!" said Moses. "While thou art pledging the book I shall have time to finish _davening_." He hitched up his _Talith_ and commenced to gabble off, "Happy are they who dwell in Thy house; ever shall they praise Thee, Selah," and was already saying, "And a Redeemer shall come unto Zion," by the time Esther rushed out through the door with the pledge. It was a gaudily bound volume called "Treasures of Science," and Esther knew it almost by heart, having read it twice from gilt cover to gilt cover. All the same, she would miss it sorely. The pawnbroker lived only round the corner, for like the publican he springs up wherever the conditions are favorable. He was a Christian; by a curious anomaly the Ghetto does not supply its own pawnbrokers, but sends them out to the provinces or the West End. Perhaps the business instinct dreads the solicitation of the racial. Esther's pawnbroker was a rubicund portly man. He knew the fortunes of a hundred families by the things left with him or taken back. It was on his stuffy shelves that poor Benjamin's coat had lain compressed and packed away when it might have had a beautiful airing in the grounds of the Crystal Palace. It was from his stuffy shelves that Esther's mother had redeemed it--a day after the fair--soon to be herself compressed and packed away in a pauper's coffin, awaiting in silence whatsoever Redemption might be. The best coat itself had long since been sold to a ragman, for Solomon, upon whose back it devolved, when Benjamin was so happily translated, could never be got to keep a best coat longer than a year, and when a best coat is degraded to every-day wear its attrition is much more than six times as rapid. "Good mornen, my little dear," said the rubicund man. "You're early this mornen." The apprentice had, indeed, only just taken down the shutters. "What can I do for you to-day? You look pale, my dear; what's the matter?" "I have a bran-new seven and sixpenny book," she answered hurriedly, passing it to him. He turned instinctively to the fly-leaf. "Bran-new book!" he said contemptuously. "'Esther Ansell--For improvement!' When a book's spiled like that, what can you expect for it?" "Why, it's the inscription that makes it valuable," said Esther tearfully. "Maybe," said the rubicund man gruffly. "But d'yer suppose I should just find a buyer named Esther Ansell?" Do you suppose everybody in the world's named Esther Ansell or is capable of improvement?" "No," breathed Esther dolefully. "But I shall take it out myself soon." "In this world," said the rubicund man, shaking his head sceptically, "there ain't never no knowing. Well, how much d'yer want?" "I only want a shilling," said Esther, "and threepence," she added as a happy thought. "All right," said the rubicund man softened. "I won't 'aggle this mornen. You look quite knocked up. Here you are!" and Esther darted out of the shop with the money clasped tightly in her palm.