“Sir, allow me to speak and express my joy, for it is a joy to have a noble master.  Look at these children, dear master.  Three days ago they had fathers who could work and care for them.  But the cannon-balls deprived them of their fathers, and God sent them a father, and you are he.  You adopted these children when they were forsaken by all else.  You said:  ’God forbid that the children of these brave men, who had fallen in defence of the liberty of Berlin, should be orphans!  I will be their father.’  Yes, sir, that is what you said, and all the weeping mothers and all your workmen heard it and wrote it down in their hearts.  Ask these widows for whom they pray to God.  Ask the poor who were without bread and whom you fed.  Ask the whole town who it is whom they bless and praise.  They will all name the name of Gotzkowsky; with one voice they will all cry out:  “Long live our friend and father!  Long live Gotzkowsky!”

Unanimously did all join in this cry, shouting out, “Long live Gotzkowsky!”

Deeply moved, Gotzkowsky stretched out his hands to the workmen, and accepted, with cordial gratification, the flowers offered by the children.  “Thank you, thank you,” cried he, in a voice of deep emotion.  “You have richly recompensed me, for I perceive that you love me, and nothing can be more beautiful than love.”

“Diamonds!” cried out Ephraim, as he made his way through the crowd with Itzig and a deputation of the Jews, toward the hero of the day—­“diamonds are more valuable than love, Gotzkowsky.  Look at this brilliant, which sparkles and shines more brightly than ever did a look of love from any human eye.”

He presented to Gotzkowsky a costly solitaire diamond, and continued:  “Be so kind and grant us the favor of accepting this present.  It is a diamond of the first water.”

“It is a petrified tear of joy,” interrupted Itzig, “shed by us on our delivery by you from taxation.  You are our greatest benefactor, our best friend.  You have proved yourself the savior of the Jews, for you freed us from the tax, and saved us what is more precious than honor, and rank, and happiness—­our money; for, without money, the Jew is nobody.  Accept, therefore, the ring, and wear it for our sakes.”

“Accept it, we pray you,” cried Ephraim, and the Jews took up the cry.

Gotzkowsky took the ring, and placed it on his finger, thanking the givers for the costly present, and assuring them he would wear it with pleasure in honor of them.

Itzig’s brow was clouded with a slight frown, and stepping back to Ephraim and his friends, he muttered, “He accepts it.  I was in hopes he would refuse it, for it cost much money, and we could have made very good use of it.”

The solemn advance of the honorable gentlemen of the Berlin Town Council interrupted Itzig’s private soliloquy, and drew his attention toward the chief burgomaster, Herr von Kircheisen, who, in all the splendor and dignity of his golden chain and of his office, accompanied by the senators and town officers, strode pompously through the crowd, and presented his hand to Gotzkowsky, who was respectfully advancing to meet him.