The undying remembrance of persecution, endured through ages by his people, flamed within him. Years of petty trading and the practices of sharp finance had not entirely subdued his inherited racial fire. And of all the Anti-Semite persecutors, none were so exasperating as those infatuated, contemptible sentimentalists--the pin-prick fanatics--who hoped to "convert" him, asking him to exchange the breadths of his own faith, based on centuries of national sacrifice and fighting history, for their traditionless, unimaginative, sapless sectarianism. It was a hard effort to spare those people at that moment of possible revenge. Shylock had his twentieth-century opportunity. When Emmanuel reached home again he was still undecided. An ancient battle was furious in his breast. He slept that night with a pile of the offensive mission notices beside his pillow, and turned and dreamed in a troubled way, murmuring Yiddish. During breakfast he came to a decision, which he kept to himself. "Father, I am glad you can punish them," said Hannah significantly, as she helped him with his outer coat. That was the only remark passed on the subject. Wisely, he held his peace. He wrote from his office of finance in Jermyn Street--at first view you would think it a place of sale for strong cigars and strange red wines--to the sanctimonious young man, inviting Mr. Lemuel Buskin Junior to call upon Jabez Gordon "to complete the little matter of business about which Mr. Lemuel Buskin Junior had written." Then Oldstein went on to the City, and got from Max a list of the workers--the sweated workers--who gave their lives to the making of his wealth. He would visit them all, and investigate their condition, doing whatever he could--be it little or much--to modify their wants and sufferings. The last on that list of mean, poor ones, was Sally Wilkins of Paradise Court. Already he had arranged or made purposes to pay every one of his employees a living wage, whatever the result might be in the increase of prices and consequent possible loss of customers. It was a bold policy. To Emmanuel Oldstein, even still more to Max, it was very like inexcusable sin. To pay more than need be for anything was to blaspheme against the gods of Economics. But he insisted on doing it, and did it. To anticipate for the last time, the policy paid. Emmanuel’s blood was up. He kept his written resolutions before him wherever he went. They and the menu reminded him of the Lord Mayor’s appeal, of his own pledges, of his hopes of civic advancement, of the Archdeacon’s invitation to tea. Again that night a battle raged in his breast. Hannah kept watchful eyes upon him. On the following morning money-lender and victim emerged from their front-doors simultaneously. Neither appeared to notice the other--according to the canons of the unwritten law which rules the no-relation of next-door neighbours. None so far away as at the other side of a party wall!