"The next few days were very uncomfortable and queer. They all went on as if Esther were dead. The shop and bar were both closed; the pictures were hung with black; the mirrors were turned with their faces to the wall. A small lamp was burnt in a corner of her room for seven days and seven nights, and during the whole of that time Moses sat on the floor of the room barefoot and with his clothes torn. I don't know whether it is true, but I heard that the Jews took an empty coffin to the cemetery on the Sunday following, and then filled in an empty grave. I have been told that they even went so far as to put up a gravestone to Esther! On the eighth day Moses rose up and went quietly about his business again. These Jews are such strange creatures! Only fancy! he came to us that very day to ask for his rent. I scarcely recognized him--his hair had turned quite gray in the course of a week. His manner was quiet and composed, and he seems to have forgotten all about his daughter now. But as everybody knows, the Jews are fonder of their money than of their children!" "Has no one heard anything more about Esther?" asks the fat woman. "Yes--once. But what we heard wasn't much to be relied on. Little Lieutenant Szilagy--you remember what fibs he used to tell--went to spend his leave in Hungary on one occasion, and when he came back, he declared that he had seen Graf Geza and Esther in a box in the National Theatre at Pesth. But the little man tells so many lies that one never knows how much to believe. It may quite well have been some other pretty girl." "Do you know," says Frau Emilie, the highly educated lady from Lemberg, "do you know what this story reminds me of? Of a very amusing play I once saw acted in Lemberg. It was translated from the English of a certain ... oh dear! these English names...." "Perhaps you mean Shakespeare?" inquires the doctor, coming to the rescue. "Shakespeare," repeats the district judge; "he's a rather well-known poet." "Yes; a very talented man!" says the doctor, with the utmost gravity. "You're right--Shakespeare!" continues Frau Emilie; "and the play was called 'The Merchant of Venice.' There is a Jew in it, Shylock by name, whose daughter also ran away, and who, like Moses, was far fonder of his money than of his child. I therefore propose that we should no longer call the Freudenthal of to-day by his own name, but instead of that"--the speaker makes a long pause--"the Shylock--of Barnow!" The registrar feels very proud of his clever wife. The gentlemen laugh, the ladies titter, and even the estate-agent's fat wife smiles as they one and all repeat: "Ha! ha! ha! The Shylock of Barnow!" * * * * * But they do not laugh next morning. They never laugh at Shylock again--neither they nor any one else.