Further, Mr. Asherill not merely believed that foreign men and women were unbelievers, and that they crossed the Channel for no other object except to pick the pocket of John Bull, but he also fancied--not entirely without reason perhaps--that, polite manners and politer words nevertheless, all foreigners with whom he came in contact had taken his measure pretty accurately, and were laughing at him in their sleeve. In a word, the very idea of such falseness and frivolity, when conjoined with the art of making money, was odious to Mr. Asherill; and he had made much good play amongst staid heads of families, and in the company of elders of churches, by giving utterance to opinions that had at least the merit of sincerity, on the subject of peaceful foreign invasion. For these reasons, and for others which will explain themselves ere long, Mr. Asherill did not think it necessary to exhibit any effusion of feeling at sight of his visitors. "Disagreeable day," he remarked in a deprecating sort of manner, as though he were mentally apologizing to a higher authority for even commenting on the state of the weather. "Beastly," answered the taller man in a tone which clearly implied he at least entertained no fear of Providence being offended by any strictures on the English climate. "Vairy bad," agreed his companion in an accent which indicated he was more of a foreigner than the previous speaker. And this was the case. Bertrand Kleinwort was a German pure as imported, whilst Henry Werner laboured under the (personal) disadvantages of having been born in England and of having been brought up under somewhat different social circumstances to those which usually tend to the triumph of the Teutonic over the Saxon race. One accustomed to notice such matters might also have observed another distinction between the two men. While both were Germans, subject to the difference above mentioned, both had also Jewish blood in their veins, with the important difference that they certainly owed their origin to separate descendants of the lost tribes. I should be sorry to insult the memory of any one of the ten sons of Jacob who failed to send down clear title-deeds with his posterity, by suggesting to which of the number Mr. Kleinwort might directly trace his existence, but it certainly was to another brother than he from whose loins sprang the progenitor of Henry Werner. Most people would have preferred Kleinwort to Werner; preferred his soft pleading voice, his tone of ready sympathy, his pleasant, cheerful, plausible, confidential manners, till they felt his deathly grip, and understood, too late, the cold snake-like cruelty which underlay his smooth kindly exterior; the devilish deliberation with which he lay in ambush for his prey till the moment came, and with it, for ever, farewell to hope--aye, and it had been to things dearer than hope, or wealth, or life itself.