David Levi was the literary ornament of the Ghetto; a shoe-maker and hat-dresser who cultivated Hebrew philology and the Muses, and broke a lance in defence of his creed with Dr. Priestley, the discoverer of Oxygen, and Tom Paine, the discoverer of Reason.
"Pshaw! David Levi! The mad hatter!" cried Grobstock. "He makes nothing at all out of his books."
"You should subscribe for more copies," retorted Manasseh.
"I would if you wrote them," rejoined Grobstock, with a grimace.
"I got six copies of his Lingua Sacra," Manasseh declared with dignity, "and a dozen of his translation of the Pentateuch."
"You can afford it!" snarled Grobstock, with grim humour. "I have to earn my money."
"It is very good of Mr. da Costa, all the same," interposed the hostess. "How many men, born to great possessions, remain quite indifferent to learning!"
"True, most true," said da Costa. "Men-of-the-Earth, most of them."
After supper he trolled the Hebrew grace hilariously, assisted by Yankelé, and ere he left he said to the hostess, "May the Lord bless you with children!"
"Thank you," she answered, much moved.