“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 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 advertisement canvasser, Mr. De Haan?”

“No, not yet,” said De Haan, turning around.  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 advertisements rolling in of themselves,” said De Haan, with a magnificent sweep of the arm.  “And we shall all assist in that department!  Help yourself to another cigar, Sampson.”  And he passed 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 Cabalah,” the zealot’s voice was heard to observe.

“You can’t get advertisements by Cabalah,” drily interrupted Guedalyah, the greengrocer, a practical man, as everybody knew.

“No, indeed,” protested Sampson.  “The advertisement canvasser is a more important man than the editor.”

Ebenezer pricked up his ears.

“I thought you undertook to do some canvassing 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 advertisements 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 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—­”