"Of what?" said Lorenzo, bouncing up and forgetting all sense of politeness in the strange demand. "My dearest madam, you eat a sausage?"
"Ha, ha, I'm blesht," shouted Abednego, the banker, Rebecca's papa, "I'm blesht, if Signor Lorenz does not think you want to eat the unclean animal, Rebecca, my soul's darling. These shtudents are dull fellows, look you, and only know what's in their books. Why, there are in dis vicked vorld no less than four hundred kindsh of shausages, Signor Lorenz, of which Herr Bürcke, the court-butcher, will show you the resheipts.—Confess now, you thought my darling wanted to eat pig—faugh!"
Rebecca's countenance, at the very idea, assumed an expression of the most intolerable disgust, and she gazed reproachfully at Lorenzo. That young man blushed, and looked particularly foolish, as he said: "Pardon me, dearest madam, for entertaining a thought so unworthy. I did, I confess, think of pork-sausages, when you spoke, and although pretty learned on most subjects, am indeed quite ignorant upon the matter of which Herr Abednego has just been speaking."
"I told you so," says Abednego. "Why, my goot sir, dere is mutton-sausages, and veal-sausages, and beef-sausages, and—"
"Silence, papa," said Rebecca, sharply: "for what has Signor Lorenz to do with such things? I'm very sorry that I—that I offended him by asking for any dish of the kind, and pray let him serve us with what he has."
Rebecca sunk down in a chair looking very faint; but Lorenzo started up, and swore that he would have himself cut up into little pieces, stuffed into a bladder, and made sausage-meat of, rather than that the lovely Israelite should go without the meat that she loved. And, indeed, such was the infatuated passion which this young man entertained for the Jewess, that I have not the least doubt but that he would have been ready to do as he said. "I will send down immediately into the town," continued he, "and in ten minutes, my messenger will be back again."
"He must run very fast," said the lady, appeased, "but I thought you said, Signor Lorenz, that you kept but one servant, and that your old housekeeper was too ill to move?"
"Madam, make your mind quite easy.—I have the best little messenger in the world."
"Is it a fairy," said the Jewess, "or a household demon? They say that you great students have many such at your orders, and I should like to see one of all things."
"You shall see him, dearest lady," replied the student, who took from a shelf a basket and a napkin, put a piece of money into the basket (I believe the poor devil had not many of them), and wrote a few words on a paper which he set by the side of the coin. "Mr. Bürcke," wrote he, "Herr Hofmetzler, (that is, Mr. Court-butcher,) have the goodness to send, per bearer, a rixdollar's worth of the best sausages—not pork." And then Lorenz opened his window, looked into his little garden, whistled, and shouted out, "Hallo! Spitz!"