“He insults me,” cried Meadows, “because I won't have him for a tenant against my will. Who is he? A villainous old Jew.”
“Yes, young man,” said the other, sadly, “I am Isaac Levi, a Jew. And what is your religion” (he turned upon Meadows)? “It never came out of Judea in any name or shape. D'ye call yourself a heathen? Ye lie, ye cur; the heathen were not without starlight from heaven; they respected sorrow and gray hairs.”
“You shall smart for this. I'll show you what my religion is,” said Meadows, inadvertent with passion, and the corn-factor's fingers grasped his stick convulsively.
“Don't you be so aggravating, old man,” said the good-natured George, “and you, Mr. Meadows, should know how to make light of an old man's tongue; why it's like a woman's, it's all he has got to hit with; leastways you mustn't lift hand to him on my premises, or you will have to settle with me first; and I don't think that would suit your book or any man's for a mile or two round about Farnborough,” said George with his little Berkshire drawl.
“He!” shrieked Isaac, “he dare not! see! see!” and he pointed nearly into the man's eye, “he doesn't look you in the face. Any soul that has read men from east to west can see lion in your eye, young man, and cowardly wolf in his.”
“Lady-day! Lady-day!” snorted Meadows, who was now shaking with suppressed rage.
“Ah!” cried Isaac, and he turned white and quivered in his turn.
“Lady-day!” said George, uneasily, “Confound Lady-day, and every day of the sort—there, don't you be so spiteful, old man—why if he isn't all of a tremble. Poor old man.” He went to his own door, and called “Sarah!”
A stout servant-girl answered the summons.
“Take the old man in, and give him whatever is going, and his mug and pipe,” then he whispered her, “and don't go lumping the chine down under his nose now.”