"Fault-finder, if you will, but look at yourself in the glass before you reproach others with being proud. Are you more approachable, more cordial, more charitable, than L. P. K., or many other nobles? They have their heraldry, you your millions. Two different causes, but both alike result in pride."
"Hold your peace, you are insufferable," cried the rich man.
Then he murmured between his teeth, "What an impudent fellow!"
Henri and his father-in-law laughed heartily at his wrath.
"Dear brother in Israel," continued Simon calmly, "each time that the nobles have a bad odour smell yourself. You will discover the same odour. You are at heart an aristocrat, but you lack the title."
"Enough! Enough!" cried Mann.
"No! It is not enough. I must get rid of my bile. If I do not I shall stifle, and that would be sad for me at first, for you afterward, if you wish to pay my debts. We were speaking of pride. Very well. If we have not crests surmounted with coronets, nor three hundred years of nobility"--
"Enough, I say! Enough!"
"Certainly, if you insist." And at last Simon consented to be silent.
Mann sulked awhile, then said to Jacob:--