"Sent for me to Potsdam to scold me? You are thinking of another matter. That was in my young days." He smiled and lowered his voice. "I ventured to hint in a review that His Majesty's French verses--I am glad by the way he has lived to write some against Voltaire--were not perfection. I thought I had wrapped up my meaning beyond royal comprehension. But a malicious courtier, the preacher Justi, denounced me as a Jew who had thrown aside all reverence for the most sacred person of His Majesty. I was summoned to Sans-Souci and--with a touch of _Rishus_ (malice)--on a Saturday. I managed to be there without breaking my _Shabbos_ (Sabbath)." "Then he does keep Sabbath!" thought Maimon, in amaze. "But, as you may imagine, I was not as happy as a bear with honey. However, I pleaded that he who makes verses plays at nine-pins, and he who plays at nine-pins, be he monarch or peasant, must be satisfied with the judgment of the boy who has charge of the bowls." "And you are still alive!" "To the annoyance of many people. I fancy His Majesty was ashamed to punish me before the French cynics of his court, and I know on good authority that it was because the Marquis D'Argens was astonished to learn that I could be driven out of Berlin at any moment by the police that the King made me a Schutz-Jude (protected Jew). So I owe something to the French after all. My friends had long been urging me to sue for protection, but I thought, as I still think, that one ought not to ask for any rights which the humblest Jew could not enjoy. However, a king's gift horse one cannot look in the mouth. And now you are to become _my_ Schutz-Jude"--Maimon's heart beat gratefully--"and the question is, what do you propose to do in Berlin? What is the career that is to bring you a castle and a princess?" "I wish to study medicine." "Good. It is the one profession a Jew may enter here; though, you must know, however great a practice you may attain--even among the Christians--they will never publish your name in the medical list. Still, we must be thankful for small mercies. In Frankfort the Jewish doctors are limited to four, in other towns to none. We must hand you over to Dr. Herz--there, that man who is laughing so, over one of his own good things, no doubt--that is Dr. Herz, and the beautiful creature is his wife, Henrietta, who is founding a Goethe salon. She and my daughters are inseparable--a Jewish trinity. And so, Herr Physician, I extend to you the envious congratulations of a book-keeper." "But you are not a book-keeper!"