“Stop your nonsense, Isaac;--that's not the way to know a man; that's the way not to know him, but what's more to the point is, I want Jack to know you. These young fellows have very peculiar ideas about a good many things,--and this boy is like all the rest--some of which ought to be knocked out of his head,--your race, for one thing. He thinks that because you are a Jew that you--” Jack uttered a smothered, “Oh, Uncle Peter!” but the old fellow who now had the tailor in one of his big chairs and was filling a thin wineglass with a brown liquid (ten years in the wood)--Holker sent it--kept straight on. “Jack's all right inside, or I wouldn't love him, but there are a good many things he has got to learn, and you happen to be one of them.” Cohen lay back in his chair and laughed heartily. “Do not mind him, Mr. Breen,--do not mind a word he says. He mortifies me that same way. And now--” here he turned his head to Peter--“what does he think of my race?” “Oh! He thinks you are a lot of money-getters and pawnbrokers, gouging the poor and squeezing the rich.” Jack broke out into a cold perspiration: “Really, Uncle Peter! Now, Mr. Cohen, won't you please believe that I never said one word of it,” exclaimed Jack in pleading tones, his face expressing his embarrassment. “I never said you did, Jack,” rejoined Peter with mock solemnity in his voice. “I said you THOUGHT so. And now here he is,--look at him. Does he look like Scrooge or Shylock or some old skinflint who--” here he faced Cohen, his eyes brimming with merriment--“What are we going to do with this blasphemer, Isaac? Shall we boil him in oil as they did that old sixteenth-century saint you were telling me about the other night, or shall we--?” The little tailor threw out his hands--each finger an exclamation point--and laughed heartily, cutting short Peter's tirade. “No--no--we do none of these dreadful things to Mr. Breen; he is too good to be a saint,” and he patted Jack's knees--“and then again it is only the truth. Mr. Breen is quite right; we are a race of money-getters, and we are also the world's pawnbrokers and will always be. Sometimes we make a loan on a watch or a wedding ring to keep some poor soul from starving; sometimes it is a railroad to give a millionaire a yacht, or help buy his wife a string of pearls. It is quite the same, only over one shop we hang three gilt balls: on the other we nail a sign which reads: 'Financial Agents.' And it is the same Jew, remember, who stands behind both counters. The first Jew is overhauled almost every day by the police; the second Jew is regarded as our public-spirited citizen. So you see, my young friend, that it is only a question of the amount of money you have got whether you loan on rings or railroads.” “And whether the Christian lifts his hat or his boot,” laughed Peter.