Children of the Ghetto Part 65

"Come, then! I'll challenge you to translate a page of _Metatoron's Flames_," said Pinchas, skipping about the office like a sprightly flea.

"You know no more than the Reverend Joseph Strelitski vith his vite tie and his princely income."

De Haan seized the poet by the collar, swung him off his feet and tucked him up in the coal-scuttle.

"Yah!" croaked Ebenezer. "Here's a fine editor. Ho! Ho! Ho!"

"We cannot have either of them. It's the only way to keep them quiet,"

said the furniture-dealer who was always failing.

Ebenezer's face fell and his voice rose.

"I don't see why I should be sacrificed to _'im_. There ain't a man in England who can write English better than me. Why, everybody says so.

Look at the success of my book, _The Old Burgomaster_, the best Dutch novel ever written. The _St. Pancras Press_ said it reminded them of Lord Lytton, it did indeed. I can show you the paper. I can give you one each if you like. And then it ain't as if I didn't know 'Ebrew, too.

Even if I was in doubt about anything, I could always go to my father.

You give me this paper to manage and I'll make your fortunes for you in a twelvemonth; I will as sure as I stand here."

Pinchas had made spluttering interruptions as frequently as he could in resistance of De Haan's brawny, hairy hand which was pressed against his nose and mouth to keep him down in the coal-scuttle, but now he exploded with a force that shook off the hand like a bottle of soda water expelling its cork.

"You Man-of-the-Earth," he cried, sitting up in the coal-scuttle. "You are not even orthodox. Here, my dear gentlemen, is the very position created by Heaven for me--in this disgraceful country where genius starves. Here at last you have the opportunity of covering yourselves vid eternal glory. Have I not given you the idea of starting this paper?

And vas I not born to be a Redacteur, a Editor, as you call it? Into the paper I vill pour all the fires of my song--"

"Yes, burn it up," croaked Ebenezer.

"I vill lead the Freethinkers and the Reformers back into the fold. I vill be Elijah and my vings shall be quill pens. I vill save Judaism."

He started up, swelling, but De Haan caught him by his waistcoat and readjusted him in the coal-scuttle.

"Here, take another cigar, Pinchas," he said, pa.s.sing Schlesinger's private box, as if with a twinge of remorse for his treatment of one he admired as a poet though he could not take him seriously as a man.

The discussion proceeded; the furniture-dealer's counsel was followed; it was definitely decided to let the two candidates neutralize each other.

"Vat vill you give me, if I find you a Redacteur?" suddenly asked Pinchas. "I give up my editorial seat--"

"Editorial coal-scuttle," growled Ebenezer.

"Pooh! I find you a first-cla.s.s Redacteur who vill not want a big salary; perhaps he vill do it for nothing. How much commission vill you give me?"

"Ten shillings on every pound if he does not want a big salary," said De Haan instantly, "and twelve and sixpence on every pound if he does it for nothing."

And Pinchas, who was easily bamboozled when finance became complex, went out to find Raphael.

Thus at the next meeting the poet produced Raphael in triumph, and Gradkoski, who loved a reputation for sagacity, turned a little green with disgust at his own forgetfulness. Gradkoski was among those founders of the Holy Land League with whom Raphael had kept up relations, and he could not deny that the young enthusiast was the ideal man for the post. De Haan, who was busy directing the clerks to write out ten thousand wrappers for the first number, and who had never heard of Raphael before, held a whispered confabulation with Gradkoski and Schlesinger and in a few moments Raphael was rescued from obscurity and appointed to the editorship of the _Flag of Judah_ at a salary of nothing a year. De Haan immediately conceived a vast contemptuous admiration of the man.

"You von't forget me," whispered Pinchas, b.u.t.tonholing the editor at the first opportunity, and placing his forefinger insinuatingly alongside his nose. "You vill remember that I expect a commission on your salary."

Raphael smiled good-naturedly and, turning to De Haan, said: "But do you think there is any hope of a circulation?"

"A circulation, sir, a circulation!" repeated De Haan. "Why, we shall not be able to print fast enough. There are seventy-thousand orthodox Jews in London alone."

"And besides," added Gradkoski, in a corroboration strongly like a contradiction, "we shall not have to rely on the circulation. Newspapers depend on their advertis.e.m.e.nts."

"Do they?" said Raphael, helplessly.

"Of course," said Gradkoski with his air of worldly wisdom, "And don't you see, being a religious paper we are bound to get all the communal advertis.e.m.e.nts. Why, we get the Co-operative Kosher Society to start with."

"Yes, but we ain't: going to pay for that,"' said Sugarman the _Shadchan_.

"That doesn't matter," said De Haan. "It'll look well--we can fill up a whole page with it. You know what Jews are--they won't ask 'is this paper wanted?' they'll balance it in their hand, as if weighing up the value of the advertis.e.m.e.nts, and ask 'does it pay?' But it _will_ pay, it must pay; with you at the head of it, Mr. Leon, a man whose fame and piety are known and respected wherever a _Mezuzah_ adorns a door-post, a man who is in sympathy with the East End, and has the ear of the West, a man who will preach the purest Judaism in the best English, with such a man at the head of it, we shall be able to ask bigger prices for advertis.e.m.e.nts than the existing Jewish papers."

Raphael left the office in a transport of enthusiasm, full of Messianic emotions. At the next meeting he announced that he was afraid he could not undertake the charge of the paper. Amid universal consternation, tempered by the exultation of Ebenezer, he explained that he had been thinking it over and did not see how it could be done. He said he had been carefully studying the existing communal organs, and saw that they dealt with many matters of which he knew nothing; whilst he might be competent to form the taste of the community in religious and literary matters, it appeared that the community was chiefly excited about elections and charities. "Moreover," said he, "I noticed that it is expected of these papers to publish obituaries of communal celebrities, for whose biographies no adequate materials are anywhere extant. It would scarcely be decent to obtrude upon the sacred grief of the bereaved relatives with a request for particulars."

"Oh, that's all right," laughed De Haan. "I'm sure _my_ wife would be glad to give you any information."

"Of course, of course," said Gradkoski, soothingly. "You will get the obituaries sent in of themselves by the relatives."

Raphael's brow expressed surprise and incredulity.

"And besides, we are not going to crack up the same people as the other papers," said De Haan; "otherwise we should not supply a want. We must dole out our praise and blame quite differently, and we must be very scrupulous to give only a little praise so that it shall be valued the more." He stroked his white, beard tranquilly.

"But how about meetings?" urged Raphael. "I find that sometimes two take place at once. I can go to one, but I can't be at both."

"Oh, that will be all right," said De Haan airily. "We will leave out one and people will think it is unimportant. We are bringing out a paper for our own ends, not to report the speeches of busybodies."

Raphael was already exhibiting a conscientiousness which must be nipped in the bud. Seeing him silenced, Ebenezer burst forth anxiously:

"But Mr. Leon is right. There must be a sub-editor."

"Certainly there must be a sub-editor," cried Pinchas eagerly.

"Very well, then," said De Haan, struck with a sudden thought. "It is true Mr. Leon cannot do all the work. I know a young fellow who'll be just the very thing. He'll come for a pound a week."

"But I'll come for a pound a week," said Ebenezer.

"Yes, but you won't get it," said Schlesinger impatiently.

"_Sha_, Ebenezer," said old Sugarman imperiously.

De Haan thereupon hunted up a young gentleman, who dwelt in his mind as "Little Sampson," and straightway secured him at the price named. He was a lively young Bohemian born in Australia, who had served an apprenticeship on the Anglo-Jewish press, worked his way up into the larger journalistic world without, and was now engaged in organizing a comic-opera touring company, and in drifting back again into Jewish journalism. This young gentleman, who always wore long curling locks, an eye-gla.s.s and a romantic cloak which covered a mult.i.tude of shabbinesses, fully allayed Raphael's fears as to the difficulties of editorship.

"Obituaries!" he said scornfully. "You rely on me for that! The people who are worth chronicling are sure to have lived in the back numbers of our contemporaries, and I can always hunt them up in the Museum. As for the people who are not, their families will send them in, and your only trouble will be to conciliate the families of those you ignore."

"But about all those meetings?" said Raphael.

"I'll go to some," said the sub-editor good-naturedly, "whenever they don't interfere with the rehearsals of my opera. You know of course I am bringing out a comic-opera, composed by myself, some lovely tunes in it; one goes like this: Ta ra ra ta, ta dee dum dee--that'll knock 'em.

Well, as I was saying, I'll help you as much as I can find time for.

You rely on me for that."

"Yes," said poor Raphael with a sickly smile, "but suppose neither of us goes to some important meeting."