Cohen leaned his elbows on his plump knees and went on, the slender glass still in his hand, from which now and then he took a sip. Peter sat buried in his chair, his cigar between his fingers. Jack held his peace; it was not for him to air his opinions in the presence of the two older men, and then again the tailor had suddenly become a savant. “Of course, there are many things I wish were different,” the tailor continued in a more thoughtful tone. “Many of my people forget their birthright and force themselves on the Christian, trying to break down the fence which has always divided us, and which is really our best protection. As long as we keep to ourselves we are a power. Persecution,--and sometimes it amounts to that--is better than amalgamation; it brings out our better fighting qualities and makes us rely on ourselves. This is the view of our best thinkers, and they are right. Just hear me run on! Why talk about these things? They are for graybeards, not young fellows with the world before them.” Cohen straightened up--laid his glass on the small table, waved his hand in denial to Peter who started to refill it, and continued, turning to Jack: “And now let me hear something about your own work, Mr. Breen,” he said in his kindest and most interested voice. “Mr. Grayson tells me you are cutting a great tunnel. Under a mountain, is it not? Ah!--that is something worth doing. And here is this old uncle of yours with his fine clothes and his old wine, who does nothing but pore over his musty bank-books, and here am I in the cellar below, who can only sew on buttons, and yet we have the impudence to criticise you. Really, I never heard of such conceit!” “Oh!--but it isn't my tunnel,” Jack eagerly protested, greatly amused at the Jew's talk; “I am just an assistant, Mr. Cohen.” Somehow he had grown suddenly smaller since the little man had been talking. “Yes,--of course, we are all assistants; Mr. Grayson assists at the bank, and I assist my man, Jacob, who makes such funny mistakes in the cut of his trousers. Oh, yes, that is quite the way life is made up. But about this tunnel? It is part of this new branch, is it not? Some of my friends have told me about it. And it is going straight through the mountain.” And then before Jack or Peter could reply the speaker branched out into an account of the financing of the great Mt. Cenis tunnel, and why the founder of the house of Rothschild, who had “assisted” in its construction, got so many decorations from foreign governments; the talk finally switching off to the enamelled and jewelled snuff boxes of Baron James Rothschild, whose collection had been the largest in Europe; and what had become of it; and then by one of those illogical jumps--often indulged in by well-informed men discussing any subject that absorbs them--brought up at Voltaire and Taine and the earlier days of the Revolution in which one of the little tailor's ancestors had suffered spoliation and death.