The reporter sighed, “Rather, sir! Wished a thousand times I could have had her for a wife, and he’d had mine. I should have had a happier life. And he——”
The man laughed grimly. “Well, he’d have had a tartar!”
Hammond had heard something about the shrewish wife Simpson had unfortunately married. But he had learned all he wanted to know, so dismissed the poor, ill-married fellow.
“I think I must call upon Mrs. Joyce, and learn more about this strange matter of the coming Christ,” he told himself.
He copied the address from the head of the letter into his pocket-book, then turned to the last letter of his mail.
This proved to be a comparatively short letter, but, to Hammond, a deeply-interesting one. It was signed “Abraham Cohen,” and the writer explained that he was a Jew, who had taken the “Courier” from the very first number, and had not only become profoundly interested in the recent utterances of the editor in the “Prophet’s Chamber” column, but he had, for some days, been impressed with the desire to write to the “Prophet.”
“Will you pardon me, sir,” the letter went on, “if I say that it would be to your immense advantage, now that your mind has become aroused to the facts and history of our race, if you would get in touch with some really well-read, intelligent Jew who knows our people well, knows their history, past, present, and future, as far as the latter can be known from our Scriptures and sacred books. Should you care to fall in with my suggestion, I should be pleased to supply you with the names and addresses of several good and clever men of our people.
“Yours obediently,
“Abraham Cohen.”