It was a wonderful moment when Peloni, at last invited to call on the Judge of Israel, palpitated on the threshold of his study and gazed blinkingly at the great man enthroned before his writing-table amid elegant vistas of books and paintings. What a noble poetic vision it seemed to him: the broad brow, with the tumbled hair; the long, delicate-featured face tapering to a narrow chin environed with whiskers, but clean of beard or even of mustache, so that the mobile, sensitive mouth was laid bare. Peloni's glance also took in a handsome black coat, with a decoration on the lapel, a high-peaked collar, a black puffy bow, a frilled shirt, and a very broad jewelled cuff over a white, long-fingered hand, that held a tall quill with a great breadth of feather. "Ah, come in," said the Governor of Israel, waving his quill. "You are Peloni of Frankfort." "Come three thousand miles to kiss the hem of your garment." Noah permitted the attention. "I am obliged to you for your Hebrew poem in honour of my project," he said urbanely. "I approve of Hebrew--it is a link that binds us to our forefathers. I am myself editing a translation of the Book of Jasher." "You will have found my verses a very poor expression of your divine ideas." "You use a difficult Hebrew. But the general drift seemed to show you had caught the greatness of my conception." "Ah, yes! I have lived in _Judengasse_, oppressed and derided." "But there is worse than oppression--there is inward stagnation of the spiritual life. My idea came to me in Tunis, where the Jews are little oppressed. You know President Madison appointed me consul of the United States for the city and kingdom of Tunis, one of the most respectable and interesting stations in the regencies of Barbary. I had long desired to visit the country of Dido and Hannibal, to trace the field of Zama, and seek out the ruins of Utica,--whose sites I believe I have now successfully established,--but it was my main design to investigate the condition of the Barbary Jews, of whom, you will remember, we have no account later than Benjamin of Tudela's in the thirteenth century. But do not stand--take a chair. Well, I found our brethren--to the number of seven hundred thousand--controlling everything in Barbary, farming the revenue, regulating the coinage, keeping the Dey's jewels and almost his person,--in short, anything but persecuted, though, of course, the majority were miserably poor. They did not know I was a Jew--though Secretary Monroe recalled me because I was, and it was Monroe's doctrine that Judaism would be an obstacle to the discharge of my functions. Absurd! The Catholic priest was allowed to sprinkle the Consulate with holy water: the barefooted Franciscan received an alms, nor did I fail to acknowledge by a donation the decorated branch sent on Palm Sunday by the Greek Bishop. And as for the slaves, I assure you they were not backward in coming to ask favours. The only people who never came to me were precisely