"Don't you know him?" said Pinkus, with an ironical smile; "take care you don't know him to your cost. Ask him his name; he knows it better than I do."
"If you will put no confidence in me, I will in you," said Veitel, and told him the whole conversation.
"So he would have given you instruction?" said Pinkus, shaking his head in amazement; "fifty dollars is a large sum; but many a man would give a hundred times as much to know what he does. Not that I care what you learn, or from whom."
Veitel went to his lair in greater perplexity than ever. Soon came Pinkus with a slight supper for the stranger, to whom he manifested a remarkable degree of sociability.
He now called him out on the balcony, and after a short talk in the dark, of which Veitel guessed himself the subject, re-entered the room, saying,
"This gentleman wishes to spend a few weeks here in private; therefore, even if questioned, you will not mention it."
"I don't even know who the gentleman is," said Veitel; "how could I tell any one that he is living here?"
"You may trust this young man," observed Pinkus to the stranger, and then wished the two good-night.
The man in spectacles sat down to his supper, every now and then casting such a glance at Veitel as an old raven might do at an unfledged chicken, who had innocently ventured within his reach.
Meanwhile, the thought darted across Itzig's mind that this mysterious person might be one of the chosen few—a possessor of the infallible receipt by which a poor man could become rich. Veitel knew now that there was no magic in this, that the receipt consisted in being more cunning than the rest of the world, and that this cunning was not without its serious consequences to its possessor; nay, it seemed to him as though to acquire it were to make a compact with Satan himself. His hand trembled, his pale face glowed, but his desire for more certain knowledge on the subject prevailed; and he told the stranger that, having heard that there was an art of always buying and selling to the best advantage, and so of making a fortune, he wished to ask whether it was that art that he (the stranger) could impart if he chose.