“Mother and me went to see the Emperor and Empress at the Crystal Palace,” said Mr. Cohen. “I had a fine piece of work to take care of, mother; she might have been squeezed flat—though she was pretty near as lusty then as she is now. I said if I had a hundred mothers I’d never take one of ’em to see the Emperor and Empress at the Crystal Palace again; and you may think a man can’t afford it when he’s got but one mother—not if he’d ever so big an insurance on her.” He stroked his mother’s shoulder affectionately, and chuckled a little at his own humor.
“Your mother has been a widow a long while, perhaps,” said Deronda, seizing his opportunity. “That has made your care for her the more needful.”
“Ay, ay, it’s a good many yore-zeit since I had to manage for her and myself,” said Cohen quickly. “I went early to it. It’s that makes you a sharp knife.”
“What does—what makes a sharp knife, father?” said Jacob, his cheek very much swollen with sweet-cake.
The father winked at his guest and said, “Having your nose put on the grindstone.”
Jacob slipped from his chair with the piece of sweet-cake in his hand, and going close up to Mordecai, who had been totally silent hitherto, said, “What does that mean—putting my nose to the grindstone?”
“It means that you are to bear being hurt without making a noise,” said Mordecai, turning his eyes benignantly on the small face close to his. Jacob put the corner of the cake into Mordecai’s mouth as an invitation to bite, saying meanwhile, “I shan’t though,” and keeping his eyes on the cake to observe how much of it went in this act of generosity. Mordecai took a bite and smiled, evidently meaning to please the lad, and the little incident made them both look more lovable. Deronda, however, felt with some vexation that he had taken little by his question.
“I fancy that is the right quarter for learning,” said he, carrying on the subject that he might have an excuse for addressing Mordecai, to whom he turned and said, “You have been a great student, I imagine?”
“I have studied,” was the quiet answer. “And you?—You know German by the book you were buying.”
“Yes, I have studied in Germany. Are you generally engaged in bookselling?” said Deronda.