“There, now,” said my father, taking his seat in the chair, “if you will promise not to interrupt me any more, I will tell you my story regularly. I went to Baldwin’s bank: I found a great crowd, all pressing their demands—the clerks as busy as they could be, and all putting a good face upon the matter. The head-clerk I saw was vexed at the sight of me—he came out from behind his desk, and begged I would go up stairs to Mr. Baldwin, who wished to speak to me. I was shown up stairs to Mr. Baldwin, with whom I found a remarkably gentlemanlike foreign-looking man.
“Yes, sir—yes, ma’am—Mr. Montenero: it is well you did not either of you interrupt me to tell me his name, for if you had, I would not have told you a word more. Well, Mr. Baldwin, evidently wishing me at the devil, came forward to receive me, and, in great perplexity, said he would be at my command; he would settle my business immediately; but must beg my pardon for five minutes, while he settled with this gentleman, Mr. Montenero. On hearing the name, I am sure my look would have said plain enough to any man alive but Baldwin, that I did not choose to be introduced; but Baldwin has no breeding: so it was Mr. Montenero, Mr. Harrington—Mr. Harrington, Mr. Montenero. I bowed, and wished the Jew in the Red Sea, and Baldwin along with him. I then took up a newspaper and retreated to the window, begging that I might not be any interruption. The cursed paper was four days old, so I put it down; and as I stood looking at nothing out of the window, I heard Baldwin going on with your Jew. They had a load of papers on the table, which Baldwin kept shuffling, as he talked about the losses the house had sustained by the sudden death of Alderman Coates, and the sad bankruptcy of the executors. Baldwin seasoned high with compliments to the Jew upon his known liberality and generosity, and was trying to get him to enter into some security, which the Jew refused, saying that what he gave he gave willingly, but he would not enter into security: he added, that the alderman and his family had been unjustifiably extravagant; but on condition that all was given up fairly to the creditors, and a new course entered upon, he and his daughter would take care that the widow should be provided for properly. As principal creditor, Mr. Baldwin would, by this means, be first satisfied. I could not help thinking that all the Jew said was fair enough, and firm too; but when he had said and done, I wondered that he did not go away. He and Baldwin came to the window to which I had retreated, and Baldwin, like a city bear as he is, got in his awkward way between us, and seizing one button of my coat and one of Mr. Montenero’s, held us there face to face, while he went on talking of my demand on the house.
“‘You see, Mr. Harrington,’ said he, ‘how we are circumstanced. The property of the firm is able to answer all fair demands in due course. But here’s a set and a run made against us, and no house could stand without the assistance, that is, the forbearance of friends—that’s what we must look to. Some of our friends, in particular Mr. Montenero, have been very friendly indeed—very handsome and liberal—and we have nothing to say; we cannot, in reason, expect him to do more for the Coates’s or for us.’ And then came accounts of the executors, &c., in his banking jargon.
“What the deuce was all this to me, you know? and how awkward I felt, held by the button there, to rejudge Mr. Montenero’s acts! I had nothing for it but my snuff-box. But Baldwin’s a mere clerk—cannot guess at the feelings of a gentleman. Mr. Montenero, I observed, looked down upon Baldwin all the time with so much the air of a high-bred gentleman, that I began to think he could not be the Jew—Montenero.
“Baldwin, still thinking only of holding him up as an example to me, went on, saying, ‘Mr. Montenero, who is a foreigner, and a stranger to the house, has done so and so, and we trust our old friends will do as much—Mr. Harrington in particular. There’s our books on the table, open to Mr. Harrington—he will see we shall be provided on the fifteenth instant; but, in short, if Mr. Harrington draws his £30,000 to-day, he drives us to pay in sixpences—so there’s the case.’ In short, it came to this: if I drew, I certainly ruined them; if I did not draw, I ran a great hazard of being ruined myself. No, Baldwin would not have it that way—so when he had stated it after his own fashion, and put it into and out of his banker’s jargon, it came out to be, that if I drew directly I was certain to lose the whole; and if I did not draw, I should have a good chance of losing a great part. I pulled my button away from the fellow, and without listening to any more of his jabbering, for I saw he was only speaking against time, and all on his own side of the question, I turned to look at the books, of which I knew I never should make head or tail, being no auditor of accounts, but a plain country gentleman. While I was turning over their confounded day-books and ledgers in despair, your Jew, Harrington, came up to me, and with such a manner as I did not conceive a Jew could have—but he is a Spanish Jew—that makes all the difference, I suppose—‘Mr. Harrington,’ said he, ‘though I am a stranger to you, permit me to offer my services in this business—I have some right to do so, as I have accepted of services, and am under real obligations to Mr. Harrington, your son, a young gentleman for whom I feel the highest attachment as well as gratitude, but of whom I will now say only, that he has been one of the chief means of saving my life and my character. His father cannot, therefore, I think, refuse to let me show at least some sense of the obligations I have willingly received. My collection of Spanish pictures, which, without your son’s exertions, I could not have saved on the night of the riot, has been estimated by your best English connoisseurs at £60,000. Three English noblemen are at this moment ready to pay down £30,000 for a few of these pictures: this will secure Mr. Harrington’s demand on this house. If you, Mr. Baldwin, pay him, before three hours are over the money shall be with you. It is no sacrifice of my taste or of my pictures,’ continued your noble Jew, in answer to my scruples: ‘I lodge them with three different bankers only for security for the money. If Mr. Baldwin stands the storm, we are all as we were—my pictures into the bargain. If the worst happen, I lose only a few instead of all my collection.’
“This was very generous—quite noble, but you know I am an obstinate old fellow. I had still the Jewess, the daughter, running in my head, and I thought, perhaps, I was to be asked for my consent, you know, Harrington, or some sly underplot of that kind.
“Mr. Montenero has a quick eye—I perceived that he saw into my thoughts; but we could not speak to our purpose before Baldwin, and Baldwin would never think of stirring, if one was dying to get him out of the room. Luckily, however, he was called away by one of the clerks.
“Then Mr. Montenero, who speaks more to the point than any man I ever heard, spoke directly of your love for his daughter, and said he understood that it would not be a match that I should approve. I pleaded my principles and religious difficulties:—he replied, ‘We need not enter into that, for the present business I must consider as totally independent of any view to future connexion:’—if his daughter was going to be married to-morrow to another man, he should do exactly the same as he now proposed to do. He did not lessen her fortune:—he should say nothing of what her sense of gratitude was and ought to be—she had nothing to do with the business.
“When I found that my Jupiter Amman was in no danger, and that the love affair was to be kept clear out of the question, I was delighted with your generous Jew, Harrington, and I frankly accepted his offer. Baldwin came in again, was quite happy when he heard how it was settled, gave me three drafts at thirty-one days for my money on the bankers Mr. Montenero named: here I have them safe in my pocket. Mr. Montenero then said, he would go immediately and perform his part of the business; and, as he left the room, he begged Mr. Baldwin to tell his daughter that he would call for her in an hour.
“I now, for the first time, understood that the daughter was in the house; and I certainly felt a curiosity to see her. Baldwin told me she was settling some business, signing some papers in favour of poor Mrs. Coates, the alderman’s widow. He added, that the Jewess was a charming creature, and as generous as her father:—he told all she had done for this widow and her children, on account of some kindness her mother had received in early life from the Coates’s family; and then there was a history of some other family of Manessas—I never heard Baldwin eloquent but this day, in speaking of your Jewess:—Harrington, I believe he is in love with her himself. I said I should like to see her, if it could be managed.