"I am
very sorry, but I left off last night at such an exciting bit."
The Jew was thumbing the pages, with his black ringlets close above
them.
"Novels in office-hours!" said he; but he was very good-natured about
it, and added, "I've one or two books at home, if you're fond of this
kind of reading, and will promise me not to forget your duties."
"Oh, I promise!" said I.
"I'll put them under my desk in the corner," he said; "indeed, I would
part with some of them for a trifle."
I thanked him warmly, but what he had said was still hanging in my mind,
and I added, "Are there real prophets among the Jews now-a-days, Mr.
Benson?"
"They will make nothing by it, if there are," said he; and there was a
tone of mysteriousness in his manner of speaking which roused my
romantic curiosity. "A few of ush (very few, my dear!) mould our own
fates, and the lives of the rest are moulded by what men have within
them rather than by what they find without. If there were a true prophet
in every market-place to tell each man of his future, it would not alter
the destinies of seven men in thish wide world."
As Moses spoke the swing door was pushed open, and one of my uncle's
clients entered.
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