The Grandchildren of the Ghetto Part 9

'Yes, we shall all be helping you,' said Ebenezer.

'I vill give you from the Pierian Spring--bucketsful,' said Pinchas in a flush of generosity.

'Thank you, I shall be much obliged,' said Raphael heartily; 'for I don't quite see the use of a paper filled up as Mr. Sampson suggests.'

He flung his arms out and drew them in again. It was a way he had when in earnest. 'Then, I should like to have some foreign news. Where's that to come from?'

'You rely on me for _that_,' said Little Sampson cheerfully. 'I will write at once to all the chief Jewish papers in the world, French, German, Dutch, Italian, Hebrew, and American, asking them to exchange with us. There is never any dearth of foreign news. I translate a thing from the Italian _Vessillo Israelitico_, and the _Israelitische Nieuwsbode_ of Amsterdam copies it from us; _Der Israelit_ then translates it into German, whence it gets into Hebrew, in _Hamagid_, thence into _L'Univers Israelite_ of Paris, and thence into the _American Hebrew_. When I see it in American, not having to translate it, it strikes me as fresh, and so I transfer it bodily to our columns, whence it gets translated into Italian, and so the merry-go-round goes eternally on. Ta-dee-rum-day. You rely on me for your foreign news. Why, I can get you foreign telegrams if you'll only allow me to stick "Trieste, December 21," or things of that sort at the top. Ti-tum, tee-ti.' He went on humming a sprightly air, then suddenly interrupting himself, he said, 'But have you got an advertis.e.m.e.nt canva.s.ser, Mr. De Haan?'

'No, not yet,' said De Haan, turning round. The committee had resolved itself into animated groups, dotted about the office, each group marked by a smoke-drift. The clerks were still writing the ten thousand wrappers, swearing inaudibly.

'Well, when are you going to get him?'

'Oh, we shall have advertis.e.m.e.nts rolling in of themselves,' said De Haan, with a magnificent sweep of the arm. 'And we shall all a.s.sist in that department. Help yourself to another cigar, Sampson.' And he pa.s.sed Schlesinger's box. Raphael and Karlkammer were the only two men in the room not smoking cigars--Raphael because he preferred his pipe, and Karlkammer for some more mystic reason.

'We must not ignore Cabbalah,' the zealot's voice was heard to observe.

'You can't get advertis.e.m.e.nts by Cabbalah,' dryly interrupted Guedalyah the Greengrocer, a practical man, as everybody knew.

'No, indeed,' protested Sampson. 'The advertis.e.m.e.nt canva.s.ser is a more important man than the editor.'

Ebenezer p.r.i.c.ked up his ears.

'I thought _you_ undertook to do some canva.s.sing for your money,' said De Haan.

'So I will, so I will; rely on me for that. I shouldn't be surprised if I get the capitalists who are backing up my opera to give you the advertis.e.m.e.nts of the tour, and I'll do all I can in my spare time.

But I feel sure you'll want another man--only you must pay him well and give him a good commission. It'll pay you best in the long-run to have a good man, there are so many seedy duffers about,' said Little Sampson, drawing his faded cloak loftily around him. 'You want an eloquent, persuasive man, with a gift of the gab----'

'Didn't I tell you so?' interrupted Pinchas, putting his finger to his nose. 'I vill go to the advertisers and speak burning words to them. I vill----'

'Garn! They'd kick you out!' croaked Ebenezer. 'They'll only listen to an Englishman.' His coa.r.s.e-featured face glistened with spite.

'My Ebenezer has a good appearance,' said old Sugarman, 'and his English is fine, and dat is half de battle.'

Schlesinger, appealed to, intimated that Ebenezer might try, but that they could not well spare him any percentage at the start. After much haggling, Ebenezer consented to waive his commission if the committee would consent to allow an original tale of his to appear in the paper.

The stipulation having been agreed to, he capered joyously about the office, and winked periodically at Pinchas from behind the battery of his blue spectacles. The poet was, however, rapt in a discussion as to the best printer. The committee were for having Gluck, who had done odd jobs for most of them; but Pinchas launched into a narrative of how, when he edited a great organ in Buda-Pesth, he had effected vast economies by starting a little printing office of his own in connection with the paper.

'You vill set up a little establishment,' he said. 'I vill manage it for a few pounds a veek. Then I vill not only print your paper--I vill get you large profits from extra printing. Vith a man of great business talent at the head of it----'

De Haan made a threatening movement, and Pinchas edged away from the proximity of the coal-scuttle.

'Gluck's our printer!' said De Haan peremptorily. 'He has Hebrew type.

We shall want a lot of that. We must have a lot of Hebrew quotations--not spell Hebrew words in English like the other papers.

And the Hebrew date must come before the English. The public must see at once that our principles are superior. Besides, Gluck's a Jew, which will save us from the danger of having any of the printing done on Sat.u.r.days.'

'But shan't we want a publisher?' asked Sampson.

'That's vat I say,' cried Pinchas. 'If I set up this office, I can be your publisher, too. Ve must do things business-like.'

'Nonsense, nonsense! We are our own publishers,' said De Haan. 'Our clerks will send out the invoices and the subscription copies, and an extra office-boy can sell the papers across the counter.'

Sampson smiled in his sleeve.

'All right. That will do--for the first number,' he said cordially.

'Ta-ra-ra-ta.'

'Now then, Mr. Leon, everything is settled,' said De Haan, stroking his beard briskly. 'I think I'll ask you to help us to draw up the posters. We shall cover all London, sir--all London.'

'But wouldn't that be wasting money?' said Raphael.

'Oh, we're going to do the thing properly. I don't believe in meanness.'

'It'll be enough if we cover the East End,' said Schlesinger dryly.

'Quite so. The East End _is_ London, as far as we are concerned,' said De Haan readily.

Raphael took the pen and the paper which De Haan tendered him, and wrote '_The Flag of Judah_,' the t.i.tle having been fixed at their first interview.

'The only orthodox paper!' dictated De Haan. 'Largest circulation of any Jewish paper in the world!'

'No, how can we say that?' said Raphael, pausing.

'No, of course not,' said De Haan. 'I was thinking of the subsequent posters. Look out for the first number--on Friday, January 1st! The best Jewish writers! The truest Jewish teachings! Latest Jewish news, and finest Jewish stories! Every Friday, twopence.'

'Twopence?' echoed Raphael, looking up. 'I thought you wanted to appeal to the ma.s.ses. I should say it must be a penny.'

'It _will_ be a penny,' said De Haan oracularly.

'We have thought it all over,' interposed Gradkoski. 'The first number will be bought up out of curiosity whether at a penny or at twopence.

The second will go almost as well, for people will be anxious to see how it compares with the first. In that number we shall announce that, owing to the enormous success, we have been able to reduce it to a penny. Meantime, we make all the extra pennies.'

'I see,' said Raphael dubiously.

'We must have _Chochmah_,' said De Haan. 'Our sages recommend that.'

Raphael still had his doubts, but he had also a painful sense of his lack of the 'practical wisdom' recommended by the sages cited. He thought these men were probably in the right. Even religion could not be pushed on the ma.s.ses without business methods--and so long as they were in earnest about the doctrines to be preached, he could even feel a dim admiration for their superior shrewdness in executing a task in which he himself would have hopelessly broken down. Raphael's mind was large, and larger by being conscious of its cloistral limitations. And the men were in earnest; not even their most intimate friends could call this into question.

'We are going to save London,' De Haan put it in one of his dithyrambic moments. 'Orthodoxy has too long been voiceless, and yet it is five-sixths of Judea. A small minority has had all the say. We must redress the balance. We must plead the cause of the People against the Few.'

Raphael's breast throbbed with similar hopes. His Messianic emotions resurged. Sugarman's solicitous request that he should buy a Hamburg lottery ticket scarcely penetrated his consciousness. Carrying the copy of the poster, he accompanied De Haan to Gluck's. It was a small shop in a back street, with Jargon papers and handbills in the window, and a pervasive heavy oleaginous odour. A hand-press occupied the centre of the interior, the back of which was part.i.tioned off, and marked 'private.' Gluck came forward, grinning welcome. He wore an unkempt beard and a dusky ap.r.o.n.

'Can you undertake to print an eight-page paper?' inquired De Haan.

'If I can print at all, I can print anything,' responded Gluck reproachfully. 'How many shall you want?'

'It's the orthodox paper we've been planning so long,' said De Haan evasively.

Gluck nodded his head.