for, to his father’s surprise, Joseph had begun to put questions to him about the sale of fish, and to speak of visiting Tyre and Sidon with a view to establishing branch houses—­extensions of their business.  His father, while approving of this plan, pointed out that Tyre and Sidon being themselves on the coast of the sea could never be as good customers as inland cities, sea fish being considered, he thought mistakenly, preferable to lake.  He had been doing, it is true, a fair trade with Damascus, but whereas it was impossible to reckon on Damascus it seemed to him that their industry might be extended in many other directions.  And delighted with the change that had come over his son he said that he would have tried long ago to extend his business, if he had had knowledge of the Greek language.

He spoke of Heliopolis, and proposed to Joseph that he should go there and establish a mart for salt fish as soon as he had mastered all the details of the trade, which would be soon:  a very little application in the counting-house would be enough for a clever fellow like Joseph.

As he said these words his eyes met Rachel’s, and as soon as Joseph left the room she asked him if he believed that Joseph would settle down to the selling of salt fish:  a question which was not agreeable to Dan, who was at that moment settling himself into the conviction that Joseph had begun to evince an aptitude for trade that he himself did not acquire till many years older, causing him to flame up as might be expected against his mother, telling her that her remarks were most mischievous, whether she meant them or not.  He hoped Joseph was not the young man that she saw in him.  Before he could say any more Joseph returned, and linked his arm into his father’s, and the twain went away together to the counting-house, Dan enamoured of his son but just a little afraid all the same that Joseph might weary of trade in the end, just as he had wearied of learning.  He was moved to speak his fear to Joseph, but on consideration he resolved that no good could come of such confidences, and on the evening of the first day in the counting-house he whispered to Rachel that Joseph had taken to trade as a duck to the water, as the saying is.

Day after day he watched his son’s progress in administration, saying nothing, waiting for the head clerk to endorse his opinion that there were the makings of a first-rate man in Joseph.  He was careful not to ask any leading questions, but he could not refrain from letting the conversation drop, so that the clerk might have an opportunity of expressing his opinion of Master Joseph’s business capacities.  But the clerk made no remark:  it might as well have been that Joseph was not in the counting-house; Dan had begun to hate his clerk, who had been with him for thirty years.  He had brought him from Arimathea and couldn’t dismiss him; he could only look into his eyes appealingly.  At last the clerk spoke, and his words were like manna