"Not even the five pounds I vowed on behalf of Yankelé himself—one of your own people?"
"What! I pay in honour of Yankelé—a dirty Schnorrer!"
"Is this the way you speak of your guests?" said Manasseh, in pained astonishment. "Do you forget that Yankelé has broken bread at your table? Perhaps this is how you talk of me when my back is turned. But, beware! Remember the saying of our sages, 'You and I cannot live in the world,' said God to the haughty man. Come, now! No more paltering or taking refuge in abuse. You refuse me this beggarly five pounds?"
"Most decidedly."
"Very well, then!"
Manasseh called the attendant.
"What are you about to do?" cried Grobstock apprehensively.
"You shall see," said Manasseh resolutely, and when the attendant came, he pressed the price of his cup of coffee into his hand.
Grobstock flushed in silent humiliation. Manasseh rose.
Grobstock's fatal strain of weakness gave him a twinge of compunction at the eleventh hour.