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The Uttermost Farthing - A Savant's Vendetta by R. Austin (Richard Austin) Freeman
page 99 of 185 (53%)

"One evening, as I was returning homeward through the district that
lies at the rear of Middlesex Street, my attention was arrested by a
large card tacked on the door of a closed shop. A dingy barber's pole
gave a clue to the nature of the industry formerly carried on, and the
card--which was written upon in fair and even scholarly Hebrew
characters--supplied particulars. I had stopped to read the inscription,
faintly amused at the incongruity between the recondite Oriental
lettering and the matter-of-fact references to 'eligible premises' and
'fixtures and goodwill,' when the door opened and two men came out. One
was a typical English Jew, smart, chubby and prosperous; the other was
evidently a foreigner.

"Both men stood aside to enable me to continue my reading, and, as I was
about to turn away, the smarter of the two addressed me.

"'Good chanth here, misther. Nithe little bithness going for nothing. No
charge for goodwill or fixtures. Ready-made bithneth and nothing to pay
but rent.'

"'Ja!' the other man broke in, 'dat shop is a leedle goldmine; und you
buys 'im for noding.'

"It was an absurd situation. I was beginning smilingly to shake my head
when the Jew resumed eagerly:

"I tell you, misther, itth a chanth in a million. A firth clath bithneth
and not a brown to pay for the goodwill. Come in and have a look round,'
he added persuasively.

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