“Mind,” said the Jew, “you no let any one see de 'Cabal.' If it be once get abroad, de bank will change de play. You just carry in your head de combinations, and you, go in, and win de millions dat you want at de time.”
“Just so,” said Beecher, in ecstasy, the very thought of the golden cataract sending a thrill of rapture through him. “I suppose, however, I may show it to Davis?”
“Ach, der Davis, yaas,—der Davis can see it,” said the Jew, with a laugh whose significance it were very hard to interpret. “Dere now,” said Stein, handing him the pen, “write de name dere as on de oder.”
“Still Lackington, I suppose—eh?” asked Beecher.
“Yaas,—just de same,” said Stein, gravely.
“'Just as good for a sheep as a lamb,' as the proverb says,” muttered Beecher. And he dashed off the name with a reckless flourish. “I 'll tell you one thing, Master Stein,” said he, as he buttoned up the magic volume in the breast of his coat, “if this turn out the good dodge you say it is, I 'll behave handsomely to you. I pledge you my word of honor, I'll stand to you for double—treble the sum you have got written there. You don't know the fellow you're dealing with,—very few know him, for the matter of that,—but though he has got a smart lesson or two in life, he has good stuff in him still; and if—I say if, because, of course, all depends on that—if I can give the bank at Hamburg a spring in the air with the aid of this, I 'll not forget you, old boy.”
“You make dem all spring in de air!—Ems, Wiesbaden, Baden—all go up togeder!” And the Jew laughed with the glee of a demon.
“Not that I want to hurt any one,—not that I 'd like to squeeze a fellow too hard,” broke in Beecher, suddenly, for a quick thrill of superstitious fear—the gambler's innate conscience—shot through him, and made him tremble to think that by a chance word or thought he might disgust the Fortune he would propitiate. “No, no; my motto is, 'Live and let live!' There's room for us all!” And with the utterance of a sentiment he believed so truly generous, he took leave of the Jew, and departed.