Alas and alack!  All of Clitheroe’s sufferings could be traced to the cool, calculating hardness of the Christian’s heart.  Probably it was prejudice alone that caused him to trust the Christian, and distrust the Jew.

From day to day he passed the shop, striving to muster courage enough to enter and propose his bargain.  At first he had imagined the dealer offering him but ten dollars for the coat—­it had cost him a goodly sum; a little later he concluded that ten dollars was too little for any one to offer him; he might take twenty; a day later thirty seemed to him a probable offer, and shortly after he imagined himself consenting to receive fifty dollars, since the coat was in such admirable repair.

One day he took it to the dealer; he was not cordially welcomed by the man in shirt sleeves, with whom of late he had held innumerable imaginary conversations.  The shop was extremely small and dark; the odor of dead garments pervaded it.  With an earnest and kindly glance, Paul invited the sympathy of Abraham the son of Moses who was the son of Isaac; he saw nothing but speculation in those eyes.  His coat was examined and tossed aside, as possessing few attractions.  Clitheroe’s heart sunk within him; and it sank deeper and deeper as it began to dawn upon him that the Hebrew had no wish to possess the garment, and, if he did so, he did so only to oblige the Christian youth.  A bargain was at last struck; Paul departed with five dollars in his pocket—­his dress-coat was a thing of the past.

What could he do next to extricate himself from his dubious dilemma?  He had a small gold watch, a precious souvenir:  “Gold is gold,” said he, “and worth its weight in gold.”  He had the address of one who was known far and wide as “Uncle.”  He had heard of persons of the highest respectability seeking this uncle when close pressed, and there finding temporary relief at the hands of one who is in some respects a good Samaritan in disguise.  Paul found it absolutely impossible for him to enter the not unattractive front of this establishment but there was a “private entrance” in a small dark alley-way; so delicate is the consideration of an uncle whose business it is to nourish those in distress.

One night, it was late at night, Clitheroe stole guiltily in through the private entrance, and sought succor of his uncle:  this was an unctuous uncle, who was as sympathetic and emotional as an undertaker.  Paul exhibited his watch; not for worlds would he part with it forever; money he must have at once, and surely some good angel would come to his assistance before many days; this state of affairs could not exist much longer.  Mine uncle examined the watch with kindly eyes; with a pathetic shake of his head, a pitiful lifting of his bushy eyebrows, a commiserating shrug of his fat shoulders, and a petulant pursing of his plump lips as much as to say, “Well, it is a pity, but we must make the best of it, you know”—­he told Clitheroe he would advance him ten dollars on the watch.  For this the boy was to pay one dollar per week, and in the end receive his watch, as good as new, for the sum of ten dollars, as originally advanced.  Paul hesitated, but consented since he had no choice in the matter.