[Illustration: "'HEM!' COUGHED THE CHANCELLOR."] "But the Elders will not impose any such conditions on my son-in-law," said Manasseh, skirting round another chair so as to bring his forefinger to play upon the Chief of the Elders, on whose left he had now arrived in his argumentative advances. "In the first place he is not one of us. His desire to join us is a compliment. If anyone has offended your traditions, it is my daughter. But then she is not a male, like the Treasurer cited; she is not an active agent, she has not gone out of her way to choose a Tedesco--she has been chosen. Your masculine precedents cannot touch her." "Ay, but we can touch you," said the contemporary Treasurer, guffawing grimly. He sat opposite Manasseh, and next to the Chancellor. "Is it fines you are thinking of?" said Manasseh with a scornful glance across the table. "Very well, fine me--if you can afford it. You know that I am a student, a son of the Law, who has no resources but what you allow him. If you care to pay this fine it is your affair. There is always room in the poor-box. I am always glad to hear of fines. You had better make up your mind to the inevitable, gentlemen. Have I not had to do it? There is no _Ascama_ to prevent my son-in-law having all the usual privileges--in fact, it was to ask that he might receive the bridegroom's call to the Law on the Sabbath before his marriage that I really came. By Section III., Paragraph I., you are empowered to admit any person about to marry the daughter of a Yahid." Again the sonorous Portuguese rang out, thrilling the Councillors with all that quintessential awfulness of ancient statutes in a tongue not understood. It was not till a quarter of a century later that the _Ascamot_ were translated into English, and from that moment their authority was doomed. The Chancellor was the first to recover from the quotation. Daily contact with these archaic sanctities had dulled his awe, and the President's impotent irritation spurred him to action. "But you are _not_ a Yahid," he said quietly. "By Paragraph V. of the same section, any one whose name appears on the Charity List ceases to be a Yahid."