Jews, and the bon-mot I had made, and the toast I had drunk, and the pledge I had given, Mowbray easily engaged me to join him against the Jew boy; and a zealous partisan against Jacob I became, canvassing as if my life had depended upon this point. But in spite of all our zeal, noise, violence, and cabal, it was the least and the most simple child in the school who decided the election. This youngster had in secret offered to exchange a silver pencil-case for a top, or something of such inadequate value: Jacob, instead of taking advantage of the child, explained to him that his pencil-case was worth twenty tops. On the day of election, this little boy, mounted upon the top of a step-ladder, appeared over the heads of the crowd, and in a small clear voice, and with an eagerness which fixed attention, related the history of his pencil-case, and ended by hoping with all his heart that his friend Jacob, his honest Jacob, might be chosen. Jacob was elected. Mowbray and I, and all our party, vexed and mortified, became the more inveterate in our aversion to the successful candidate; and from this moment we determined to plague and persecute him, till we should force him to give up. Every Thursday evening, the moment he appeared in the school-room, or on the play-ground, our party commenced the attack upon "the Wandering Jew," as we called this poor pedlar; and with every opprobrious nickname, and every practical jest, that mischievous and incensed schoolboy zealots could devise, we persecuted and tortured him body and mind. We twanged at once a hundred Jew's-harps in his ear, and before his eyes we paraded the effigy of a Jew, dressed in a gabardine of rags and paper. In the passages through which he was to pass, we set stumbling-blocks in his way, we threw orange-peel in his path, and when he slipped or fell, we laughed him to scorn, and we triumphed over him the more, the more he was hurt, or the more his goods were injured. "We laughed at his losses, mocked at his gains, scorned his nation, thwarted his bargains, cooled his friends, heated his enemies-and what was our reason? he was a Jew."

But he was as unlike to Shylock as it is possible to conceive. Without one thought or look of malice or revenge, he stood before us Thursday after Thursday, enduring all that our barbarity was pleased to inflict; he stood patient and long

suffering, and even of this patience and resignation we made a jest, and a subject of fresh reproach and taunt.

How I, who was not in other cases a cruel or an ill-natured boy, could be so inhuman to this poor, unprotected, unoffending creature I cannot conceive; but such in man or boy is the nature of persecution. At the time it all appeared to me quite natural and proper; a just and necessary war. The blame, if blame there were, was divided among so many, that the share of each, my share at least, appeared to me so small, as not to be worth a moment's consideration. The shame, if we had any, was carried away in the tide of popular enthusiasm, and drowned and lost in the fury and noise of the torrent. In looking back upon this disgraceful scene of our boyish days-boyish indeed I can scarcely call them, for I was almost, and Mowbray in his own opinion was quite, a man—I say, in looking back upon this time, I have but one comfort. But I have one, and I will make the most of it: I think I should never have done so much wrong, had it not been for Mowbray. We were both horribly to blame; but though I was full as wrong in action, I flatter myself that I was wrong upon better or upon less bad motives. My aversion to the Jew, if more absurd and violent, was less interested and malignant than Mowbray's. I never could stand as he did to parley, and barter, and chaffer with him-if I had occasion to buy any thing, I was high and haughty, and at a word; he named his price, I questioned not, not I—down was thrown my money, my back was turned-and away! As for stooping to coax him as Mowbray would, when he had a point to gain, I could not have done it. To ask Jacob to lend me money, to beg him to give me more time to pay a debt, to cajole and bully him by turns, to call him alternately usurer and my honest fellow, extortioner and my friend Jacob-my tongue could not have uttered the words, my soul detested the thought; yet all this, and more, could Mowbray do, and did.

Lord Mowbray was deeply in Jacob's debt, especially for two watches which he had taken upon trial, and which he had kept three months, making, every Thursday, some fresh excuse for not paying for them; at last Jacob said that he must have the money, that his employer could wait no longer, and that he should himself be thrown into prison. Mowbray said this was

only a trick to work upon his compassion, and that the Jew might very well wait for his money, because he asked twice as much for the watches as they were worth. Jacob offered to leave the price to be named by any creditable watchmaker. Lord Mowbray swore that he was as good a judge as any watchmaker in Christendom. Without pretending to dispute that point, Jacob finished by declaring, that his distress was so urgent that he must appeal to some of the masters. "You little Jewish tell-tale, what do you mean by that pitiful threat? Appeal to the higher powers if you dare, and I'll make you repent it, you usurer! Only do, if you dare!" cried he, clenching his hand and opening it, so as to present, successively, the two ideas of a box on the ear, and a blow on the stomach. "That was logic and eloquence," added Mowbray, turning to me. "Some ancient philosopher, you know, or I know, has compared logic to the closed fist, and eloquence to the open palm. See what it is, Harrington, to make good use of one's learning."

This was all very clever, at least our party thought so, and at the moment I applauded with the rest, though in my secret soul I thought Jacob was ill used, and that he ought to have had justice, if he had not been a Jew. His fear of a prison proved to be no pretence, for it surmounted his dread of Mowbray's logic and eloquence, and of all the unpopularity which he was well aware must be the consequence of his applying to the higher powers. Jacob appealed, and Lord Mowbray was summoned to appear before the head master, and to answer to the charge. It was proved that the price set upon the two watches was perfectly fair, as a watchmaker, who was examined on this point, declared. The watches had been so damaged during the two months they had been in his lordship's possession, that Jacob declined taking them back. Lord Mowbray protested that they were good for nothing when he first had them.

Then why did he not return them after the first week's trial, when Jacob had requested either to have them back or to be paid for them? His lordship had then, as half a dozen of the boys on the Jew's side were ready to testify, refused to return the watches, declaring they went very well, and that he would

keep them as long as he pleased, and pay for them when he pleased, and no sooner.

This plain tale put down the Lord Mowbray. His wit and his party now availed him not; he was publicly reprimanded, and sentenced to pay Jacob for the watches in a week, or to be expelled from the school. Mowbray would have desired no better than to leave the school, but he knew that his mother would never consent to this.

His mother, the Countess de Brantefield, was a Countess in her own right, and had an estate in her own power;-his father, a simple commoner, was dead, his mother was his sole guardian.

"That mother of mine," said he to us, "would not hear of her son's being turned out-so I must set my head to work against the head of the head master, who is at this present moment inditing a letter to her ladyship, beginning, no doubt, with, 'I am sorry to be obliged to take up my pen,' or, ‘I am concerned to be under the necessity of sitting down to inform your ladyship.' Now I must make haste and inform my lady mother of the truth with my own pen, which luckily is the pen of a ready writer. You will see," continued he, "how cleverly I will get myself out of the scrape with her. I know how to touch her up. There's a folio, at home, of old Manuscript Memoirs of the De Brantefield family, since the time of the flood, I believe : it's the only book my dear mother ever looks into; and she has often made me read it to her, till-no offence to my long line of ancestry-I cursed it and them; but now I bless it and them for supplying my happy memory with a case in point, that will just hit my mother's fancy, and, of course, obtain judgment in my favour. A case, in the reign of Richard the Second, between a Jew and my great, great, great, six times great grandfather, whom it is sufficient to name to have all the blood of all the De Brantefields up in arms for me against all the Jews that ever were born. So my little Jacob, I have you."

Mowbray, accordingly, wrote to his mother what he called a chef-d'œuvre of a letter, and next post came an answer from Lady de Brantefield with the money to pay her son's debt, and, as desired and expected, a strong reproof to her son for his folly

in ever dealing with a Jew. How could he possibly expect not to be cheated, as, by his own confession, it appeared he had been, grossly? It was the more extraordinary, since he so well recollected the ever to be lamented case of Sir Josseline de Brantefield, that her son could, with all his family experience, be, at this time of day, a dupe to one of a race branded by the public History of England, and private Memoirs of the De Brantefields, to all eternity!

Mowbray showed this letter in triumph to all his party. It answered the double purpose of justifying his own bad opinion of the tribe of Israel, and of tormenting Jacob.

The next Thursday evening after that on which judgment had been given against Mowbray, when Jacob appeared in the school-room, the anti-Jewish party gathered round him, according to the instructions of their leader, who promised to show them some good sport at the Jew's expense.

"Only give me fair play," said Mowbray, "and stick close, and don't let him off, for your lives don't let him break through you, till I've roasted him well."

"There's your money," cried Mowbray, throwing down the money for the watches-" take it—ay, count it—every penny right-I've paid you by the day appointed; and, thank Heaven and my friends, the pound of flesh next my heart is safe from your knife, Shylock !"

of

Jacob made no reply, but he looked as if he felt much.

"Now tell me, honest Jacob," pursued Mowbray, "honest Jacob, patient Jacob, tell me, upon your honour, if you know what that word means-upon your conscience, if you ever heard any such thing—don't you think yourself a most pitiful dog, to persist in coming here to be made game of for twopence? "Tis wonderful how much your thoroughbred Jew will do and suffer for gain. We poor good Christians could never do as much now could we any soul of us, think you, Jacob?"

"Yes," replied Jacob, "I think you could, I think you would."

Loud scornful laughter from our party interrupted him; he waited calmly till it was over, and then continued, Every soul of you good Christians would, I think, do as much for a father, if he were in want and dying, as mine is."