The clothier and his family lived at forty-eight. The next house was number fifty. The two front-doors were immediately adjacent, the entrances separated by a row of rusty railings.
As he ascended his steps, Emmanuel slyly slipped a folded, printed paper out of his breast-pocket; and leaning over the railings, gently dropped it into the next-door letter-box.
The same instant his front-door was opened by Hannah, the ever-indignant, eldest daughter of the house.
"Those people have been at it again!" she said, and angrily crumpled up and threw down a circular she had just taken out of the letter-box.
"The thame thort?" her father asked, shutting the door quietly.
"Yes, of course, this is the ninety-second they've dropped in. It makes me wild! I've made up my mind when the hundredth comes--if it does come--to give Aaron Hyam's youngest tuppence to break their kitchen window."
"Don't waste yer money like that; am I a millionaire?" He picked up and smoothed out the circular, and began to read it aloud: "'Thothiety for the Conversion of the Jews; an evenin' meetin' with addretheth.' Oh, put it with the retht, Max will make a spill of it. Leave it to Papa, dear. I've got a better plan for dealing with 'em; I've begun to put it in practice already."
"'Ave you, Dad? I'd like to scratch that little nincompoop of a son of theirs. He makes me mad with his soppy smile, and sandy whiskers, and conceited sanctimoniousness. I'd give 'im hymns at the street corner."
"A much better plan, my clear. You may as well give me them little billths--all of 'em. They'll be useful. They're poor, ain't they?"
"They are--as synagogue rats--if the faces of the tradespeople are anything to go by."