"And a baked potato? Yase."
He was served.
"I beg your pardon, Christian lady, have you got, perhaps, der littel pickel-chesnut and der crimson cabbage?"
"Mr Tomkins, go down-stairs and get the pickles," said the mistress of the house, and Tomkins vanished like a mouse on tiptoe.
Before he could return, Stanislaus had eaten more than half his chop, and discovered that, after all, "it was not just the ting." Mrs Jehu entreated him to try another. He declined at first; but at length suffered himself to be persuaded. Four chops had graced the dish originally; the remaining two were divided equally between the lady and myself. I begged that my share might be left for the worthy host, but receiving a recommendation from his wife "not to mind him," I said no more, but kept Mr Stanislaus Levisohn in countenance.
"I hope you'll find it to your liking, Mr Stukely," said our hostess.
"Mishter vat?" exclaimed the foreigner, looking quickly up. "I tink I"——
"What is the matter, my dear sir?" enquired the lady of the house.
"Noting, my tear friend, I tought der young gentleman vos a poor unconverted sinner dat I met a long time ago. Dat is all. Ve talk of someting else."
Has the reader forgotten the dark-visaged individual, who at the examination of my lamented father before the Commissioners of Bankruptcy made his appearance in company with Mr Levy and the ready Ikey? Him I mean of the vivid imagination, who swore to facts which were no facts at all, and whom an unpoetic jury sentenced to vile imprisonment for wilful perjury? There he sat, transformed into a Pole, bearded and whiskered, and the hair of his head close clipped, but in every other regard the same as when the constable invited him to forsake a too prosaic and ungrateful world: and had Mr Levisohn been wise and guarded, the discovery would never have been made by me; for we had met but once before, then only for a short half hour, and under agitating circumstances. But my curiosity and attention once roused by his exclamation, it was impossible to mistake my man. I fixed my eye upon him, and the harder he pulled at his chop, and the more he attempted to evade my gaze, the more satisfied was I that a villain and an impostor was seated amongst us. Thinking, absurdly enough, to do my host and hostess a lasting service, I determined without delay to unmask the pretended saint, and to secure his victims from the designs he purposed.