I was fumbling in my pocket for a little change wherewith to dismiss him,—­for that is usually the easiest way of getting off your premises and your conscience the applicant for “aid,” who is probably an impostor, yet possibly not,—­when my eye caught the words (for I still held the document), “would be glad of any employment which may help to pay his way.”  The idea of finding employment for a man of such a large nose and little body, such extensive knowledge and diminutive legs—­who had mastered five languages yet could not speak or understand a word of any one of them,—­struck me as rather pleasant, to say the least; yet, after a moment’s reflection,—­wasn’t he the very thing I wanted, the manikin, the target for my uncle?

Meanwhile he was scribbling rapidly on a small slate he had taken from his pocket.  With another bow (as if he had written something wrong and was going to wipe it out with his nose), he handed me the slate, on which I found written in a neat hand half-a-dozen lines in as many different languages,—­English, Latin, Hebrew, German, French, Greek,—­each, as far as I could make out, conveying the cheerful information that he could communicate with me in that particular tongue.  I tried him in English, French, and Latin, and I must acknowledge that he stood the test; he then tried me In Greek and Hebrew, and I as freely confess that I didn’t stand the test.  He smiled intelligently, nodded, and condescendingly returned to the English tongue, writing quickly,—­“I am a poor exile from Fatherland, and I much need friends.”

I wrote:  “You wish employment?” He replied:  “I shall be much obliged for any service I shall be capable to do,”—­and passed me the slate with a hopeful smile.

“What can you do?” I asked.  He answered:  “I copy the manuscripts, I translate from the one language to others with some perfect exactitude, I arrange the libraries, I make the catalogues, I am capable to be any secretary.”  And he looked up as if he saw in my eyes a vast vista of catalogues, manuscripts, libraries, and Fatherland at the end of it.

“How would you like to be companion to a literary man?” I inquired.

He nodded expressively, and wrote:  “I should that like overall.  But I speak and hear not.”

“No matter,” I replied.  “You will only have to sit and appear to listen, and nod occasionally.”

“You shall be the gentleman?” he asked with a bright, pleased look.

I explained to him that the gentleman was an unfortunate connection of my family, whom we could not regard as being quite in his right mind.

Jacob Menzel smiled, and touched his fore head interrogatively.

I nodded, adding on the slate,—­“He is perfectly harmless; but he can only be kept quiet by having some person to talk and read to.  He will talk and read to you.  He must not know you are deaf.  He is very deaf himself, and will not expect you to reply.”  And, for a person wishing a light and easy employment, I recommended the situation.