yourself, who are a Jew--"

Hogarth's eyes opened in surprise."_I_ am not a Jew ".

"No? I should have said that there was a hint of expression
somewhere--But to resume. I retained those seven diamonds, and
disposed of them".

"Honest behaviour!"

"Perfectly honest! I acquainted the Pope--he sanctioned it! And now,
I, single-handed almost, threw myself into that task. I hired, I
built, I begged, I borrowed, I formed committees, I haunted
Religious Houses, I sweated, I ran, I wept, I visited dens, I smoked
opium, I drank gin, I framed memorials, I learned Yiddish, I read
the Mishna and Gemara, I interviewed Rabbonim, I wrote tracts: I was
busy. In the midst of it, I had to visit Rome ceremoniously, to
assist at an interview between the Duke of York and his Holiness--
arrived on the Monday, and on the Wednesday, I remember, attended a
Court Ball in the suite of his Royal Highness. That night, when I
returned to the Vatican, I found all the Piazza di San Pietro
crowded. I do not know if you were free at the time when my friend,
M. Tissot, startled everybody by predicting the collision of an
asteroid with the earth? Tut, the silly being--he should have known
from the body's response to the spectroscope that its condition was
too friable to resist our atmosphere. But I never yet knew an
astronomer not imbued with sensationalism they acquire a certain
megalomania from their intercourse with space. But, at all events,
the people, dreading the destruction of everything, had crowded
toward the Vatican. The Duke of Genoa, I, and some of the College of