The room into which Diogenes now stepped looked at first sight to be almost devoid of furniture: it was only when the Jew had entered and placed the lanthorn down upon a wooden table at one end of the room that the philosopher realized where he was.
The dark low walls showed themselves lined with solid oak chests and presses, each with massive hinges and locks, rusty and covered with dust, but firm enough to withstand for many an hour the depredations of thieves. Ben Isaje was obviously a jeweller by trade and this was the shop where he kept his precious goods: no wonder then that he looked with obvious fear on his belated visitor with the powerful shoulders and vigorous limbs, seeing that to all appearances he was at the moment alone in the house.
Like all jewellers settled in the Dutch cities at this time Ben Isaje carried on a number of other trades—some of which were perhaps not altogether avowable. He acted as banker and moneylender, and general go-between in financial transactions, some of which had political aims. Discretion was of necessity his chief stock-in-trade, and his small cargo of scruples he had thrown overboard long ago.
He was as ready now to finance a conspiracy against the Stadtholder as against the Archduchess or Don John, provided he saw huge monetary profits in the deal, and received bribes with a calm conscience both from Maurice of Nassau and the Lord of Stoutenburg. But once he was liberally paid he would hold to his bond: it was only by keeping the good graces of all political parties that he remained free from molestation.
Diogenes had known exactly what to expect when Nicolaes Beresteyn gave him the letter and bond to present to Ben Isaje; he was, therefore, not surprised in the least when he saw before him the true type of financial agent whom already he had met more than once in his life before.
Ben Isaje, who was the depositary of vast sums of money placed in his house by clients of substance and of note, wore a long, greasy kaftan of black cloth, which was worn thread-bare at the elbows and the knees, and the shop wherein he transacted business both for governments and private individuals which oft times involved several million guilders, had only a few very ricketty chairs, one or two tables blackened with dirt and age, and a piece of tattered carpet in one corner as sole expressions of comfort.
But all these facts were of course none of Diogenes' business. At his host's invitation he had sat down on one of the ricketty chairs and then proceeded to extract some papers from out the inner lining of his doublet.
"It would save time," he began dryly, and seeing that the man still eyed him with suspicion, "if you would cease to deny that you are Ben Isaje, jeweller of Rotterdam. I have here some papers which I must deliver into the said Ben Isaje's own hands: they are writ by Mynheer Nicolaes Beresteyn of Haarlem and do explain the purport of my visit here."
"From Nicolaes Beresteyn," quoth the other with an obvious sigh of relief. "Why did you not name him before, sir? I am always at Mynheer Nicolaes Beresteyn's commands. Indeed my name is Ben Isaje. An you have cause to doubt it, sir...."
"Dondersteen! but I never did doubt it, man, from the moment I saw the end of your hooked nose through the aperture of your door. So no more talk now, I pray you. Time is getting on. Here is the letter which Mynheer Beresteyn bade me present to you."