Everyone connected with the Cloth Market of Cracow still remembers Gideon the Rich, son of Manasseh, who excelled in the cloth trade and died in the pathways of the Lord. Not only for his prosperity was Gideon notable. He was universally regarded as "a character," and the man truly had been gifted by Heaven with a combination of qualities--whether good or bad, yet well balanced--setting him apart from the common herd. Gideon was a thick, rotund little Jew, amiable in appearance to the point of joviality, with a fresh pink and white face in which two large emotional blue eyes, always looking ready to brim over, bathed his least words, whether of pity or business, with generous passions. Being an orthodox Jew, he naturally wore a long, black levitical coat which concealed his swinging woollen fringes. Where his abundant gray hair met with his silky beard (unprofaned by shears) hung the two long _paillès_, cabalistic locks which Jehovah loves to see brushing the temples of the faithful. When the whole was topped by a tall hat, impeccably lustrous, and Gideon appeared in the Soukinitza, silence spread, as all gazed at the noble great-coat (of silk or of cloth, according to the season) whose pockets offered a safe asylum to the mysteries of universal trade. Never suppose that such authority was a result of chance or any sudden bold grasping of advantage. It was the fruit of long endeavour, continually fortunate because he never embarked on an enterprise or a combination without laborious calculations, in which all chances favourable or adverse had been duly weighed. Manasseh had acquired a very modest competence in the old clothes business, and everyone knows that the old clothes of the Polish Jews are young when the rest of mankind consider them past usefulness. One cannot accumulate any great fortune in this business, which is why Gideon, at Manasseh's death, sold his paternal inheritance and went unostentatiously to occupy the meanest booth in the Cloth Market. At first no one took any notice of him. The shops in that market are little more than wardrobes. The doors fold back and become show-cases. The proprietor sits on a chair in the middle, and the passer will hardly get by without being deluged with reasons for buying exactly the entire contents of the shelves. Gideon, at the front of his black cave, lighted only by the big, hollow, smouldering eyes of his mother, seated motionless for hours on a heap of rags, thought himself in a palace fit for kings. Dazzled but calm, he skillfully spread his striking wares to tempt the passer. Others ran after possible purchasers, soliciting them, bothering them. The modest display which depended upon nothing but its attractiveness obtained favour. "It may be cheaper in there," people said, and submitted to persuasion. It was the beginning of a great destiny.