“O hear him! see him go it!” said Robbie.  “What a nose!”

“Long may it wave!” said Harry.

With other remarks of a like genial nature; while there they sat, the two,—­my uncle on one side, long, lathy, self-satisfied, gesticulating, earnestly laying his case before a grave jury of one, whom he was bound to convince, if time would allow; my little Jew facing him, upright in his chair, stiff, imperturbable, devoted to business, honorably earning his money, the nose in the air, immovable, except when it played duly up and down at fitting intervals:  in which edifying employment I left them, and went about my business, a cheerier man.

Ah, what a relief it was to feel myself free for a season from the attacks of the enemy—­to know that my plucky little Iron-Clad was engaging him!  In a hour I passed through the hall again, heard the loud blatant voice still discoursing (it had got as far as the difficulties with the second parish), and saw the unflinching nasal organ perform its graceful see-saw of assent.  An hour later it was the same,—­except that the speaker had arrived at the persecutions which drove him from parish number three.  When I went to call them to dinner, the scene had changed a little, for now the old gentleman, pounding the table for a pulpit, was reading aloud passages from a powerful farewell sermon preached to his ungrateful parishioners.  I was sorry I couldn’t give my man a hint to use his handkerchief at the affecting periods, for the nose can hardly be called a sympathetic feature (unless indeed you blow it), and these nods were becoming rather too mechanical, except when the old gentleman switched off on the argumentative track, as he frequently did.  “What think you of that?” he would pause in his reading to inquire.  “Isn’t that logic? isn’t that unanswerable?” In responding to which appeals nobody could have done better than my serious, my devoted, my lovely little Jew.

“Dinner!” I shouted over my uncle’s dickey.  It was almost the only word that had the magic in it to rouse him from the feast of reason which his own conversation was to him.  It was always easy to head him toward the dining-room—­to steer him into port for necessary supplies.  The little Iron-Clad followed in his wake.  At table, the old gentleman resumed the account of his dealings with parish number three, and got on as far as negotiations with number four; occasionally stopping to eat his soup or roast-beef very fast; at which time Jacob Menzel, who was very much absorbed in his dinner, but never permitted himself to neglect business for pleasure, paused at the proper intervals, with his spoon or fork half-way to his mouth, and nodded,—­just as if my uncle had been speaking,—­yielding assent to his last remarks after mature consideration, no doubt the old gentleman thought.

The fun of the thing wore off after a while, and then we experienced the solid advantages of having an Iron-Clad in the house; Afternoon—­evening—­the next day—­my little man of business performed his function promptly and assiduously.  But in the afternoon of the second day he began to change perceptibly.  He wore an aspect of languor and melancholy that alarmed me.  The next morning he was pale, and went to his work with an air of sorrowful resignation.