The children’s faces showed that they knew nothing at all as, with open eyes, they trotted and turned beside the long-striding old man.  He twitched his gown over his shoulders, and a square plate of gold, studded with jewels, gleamed for an instant through the fur, like a star through flying snow.

‘No matter,’ he said.  ’But, credit me, my Prince saw peace or war decided not once, but many times, by the fall of a coin spun between a Jew from Bury and a Jewess from Alexandria, in his father’s house, when the Great Candle was lit.  Such power had we Jews among the Gentiles.  Ah, my little Prince!  Do you wonder that he learned quickly?  Why not?’ He muttered to himself and went on:—­

’My trade was that of a physician.  When I had learned it in Spain I went to the East to find my Kingdom.  Why not?  A Jew is as free as a sparrow—­or a dog.  He goes where he is hunted.  In the East I found libraries where men dared to think—­schools of medicine where they dared to learn.  I was diligent in my business.  Therefore I stood before Kings.  I have been a brother to Princes and a companion to beggars, and I have walked between the living and the dead.  There was no profit in it.  I did not find my Kingdom.  So, in the tenth year of my travels, when I had reached the Uttermost Eastern Sea, I returned to my father’s house.  God had wonderfully preserved my people.  None had been slain, none even wounded, and only a few scourged.  I became once more a son in my father’s house.  Again the Great Candle was lit; again the meanly apparelled ones tapped on our door after dusk; and again I heard them weigh out peace and war, as they weighed out the gold on the table.  But I was not rich—­not very rich.  Therefore, when those that had power and knowledge and wealth talked together, I sat in the shadow.  Why not?

’Yet all my wanderings had shown me one sure thing, which is, that a King without money is like a spear without a head.  He cannot do much harm.  I said, therefore, to Elias of Bury, a great one among our people:  “Why do our people lend any more to the Kings that oppress us?” “Because,” said Elias, “if we refuse they stir up their people against us, and the People are tenfold more cruel than Kings.  If thou doubtest, come with me to Bury in England and live as I live.”

’I saw my mother’s face across the candle flame, and I said, “I will come with thee to Bury.  Maybe my Kingdom shall be there.”

’So I sailed with Elias to the darkness and the cruelty of Bury in England, where there are no learned men.  How can a man be wise if he hate?  At Bury I kept his accounts for Elias, and I saw men kill Jews there by the tower.  No—­none laid hands on Elias.  He lent money to the King, and the King’s favour was about him.  A King will not take the life so long as there is any gold.  This King—­yes, John—­oppressed his people bitterly because they would not give him money.  Yet his land was a good land.  If