Whether the old man read what was passing within him is hard to say, but he returned the other's look as steadily and as fiercely, and Beecher felt abashed and cowed.
“I' ll tell you what, Stein,” said he, after a pause, “I 'll buy that same old volume of yours, just for the curiosity of the thing, and I 'll make you a sporting offer,—I 'll give you ten thousand francs for it!”
A low wailing whistle of utter contempt was all the Jew replied.
“Well, it's a splendid bid, if you come to think of it; for, just suppose it be everything you say—and I own I can't believe it is,—but suppose it were, who is to guarantee the continuance of these great public play-tables? All the Governments of Europe are setting their faces against them,—not a year passes without one or two being closed. This very spring there was a talk of suppressing play at Baden. Who can tell what the first outbreak of fanatic zeal may effect?”
“No, no. So long as men live, dey will do tree tings,—make love, make war, and gamble. When dey give up dese, de world shut up.”
There was a truthful force about this Beecher felt could not be gainsaid, and he stood silent and confuted. There was another appeal that he had not tried, and he resolved to neglect nothing that gave even the faintest chance of success. He addressed himself to the Jew's goodness of heart,—to the benevolence that he knew must have its home in his nature. To what end, therefore, should he carry to the grave, or destroy, a secret that might be a blessing to thousands? He depicted, not without knowledge, some of the miseries of the man “forgotten of Fortune,”—the days of fevered anxiety,—the nights of agonizing torture, as, half maddened by his losses, he played wildly, recklessly on,—suicide in all its darkest forms ever present to his aching faculties, while all this time one glance within that little book would save him. And he wound up all by a burst of enthusiastic praise of a man who could thus transmit happiness to generations unborn.
“I never wish to sell dat book. I mean it alway to die wit myself! but if you will give me one tousand pounds, it is yours. If you delay, I will say two tousands.”
“Done—I take it. Of course a bill will do—eh?”
“Yaas, I will take a bill,—a bill at tree months. When it is yours, I will tell you dat you are de luckiest man in all Europe. You have dere, in dat leetle volume, all man strive for, fight for, cheat for, die for!”
As he said this, he sat down again at his desk to write the acceptance Beecher was to sign; while the other, withdrawing into the window recess, peered eagerly into the pages of the precious book.