When the guest's cloak had been carefully put aside and his feet washed, the group gathered in the wide window-seat where he reclined, to hear news from Rome. "Hath the fame of the garment of Lolilla Pauline come to your ears?" he asked.
"Nay," answered Martha.
"Of seed pearls was it covered and over the pearls lay leaves of emerald. Forty million sesterces did it cost. Thou holdest up thy hands? Then will I tell thee of one that did cost fifty million sesterces—the like of which eye hath not seen before. On a robe of pearls sprinkled with diamonds, sat a peacock of great size so that his head did rest on the shoulders of the wearer and the tail of the bird did cover her back. And of rare jewels was this bird made; emeralds and rubies and topaz and sapphire and amethyst and opals and jacinths, set with such skill as to make the breast-plate of the High Priest a bauble. What delighteth the heart of a woman more than rich wearing apparel?" The question followed his description of the jewels and he laughed heartily at Martha's expression of amazed delight.
"Yet another garment would I tell thee of, such a one as eye hath not before seen." He stopped to laugh heartily. "A garment it also was of many colors," and again he laughed. "In that which is filthy and cast away do rag-pickers stir and strive. And when they have great stores of that which is vile and useless, do they sew it together into a garment and sell it for a pittance to a slave to cover his naked body. Such a rag-picker's garment saw I. Such a sight—sold for such a pittance."
"But might not the pittance paid for a rag-picker's garment be more to the slave than fifty million sesterces to one whose toil earned not even the first of them?" asked Mary.
"Ask me not questions about slaves, the rabble. Thou knowest they are but broilers and vile."
"Perhaps," Mary answered thoughtfully, "if slaves and the rabble were better fed they would broil less. Doth not Baba Metzia say 'When the barley in the jar is finished, quarrels come thundering through the house'?"
"Thou knowest nothing of slaves and the rabble, fair Mary. Never are the poor content. Give them bran and vinegar and they want herbs. Give them herbs and they want lentils. Give them lentils and they want sop of mutton. And once sop-fed will they cry aloud for the mutton itself. Cursed be the poor, by God. Let them be accursed." And the money-changer nodded his head in approval of his speech.
"Yea, accursed be the poor," said Lazarus. "Yet it seemeth not so much according to the curse of God as to the greed of man. To the rich their riches come by inheritance as came mine. Or cometh riches by great cunning and skill in taking from others."
"As cometh mine," Zador Ben Amon laughed, rubbing his hands and looking from one to the other for approval. "And even now my palms grow hot for that which shall come into them from my Temple booths at the Passover. But how dost thou reason, Lazarus? If there are rich and mighty must there not of necessity be the poor and weak?"