The Immortal Story, I-V, pp. 135- 155 Summary

I. Mr. Clay— Mr. Clay is a very rich tea trader in the semi-colonial city of Canton in China. He is known for destroying his former partner, a French merchant. Now Mr. Clay is friendless, suffering gout and has difficulty sleeping. By accident, Mr. Clay finds out that having a young clerk read account books to him calms him down and helps the night pass better. The clerk reads account books going back 15 years repeatedly, until Mr. Clay asks the clerk to find him something new to read.

II. Elishama— The clerk is known as Ellis, but he is really a Jew from Poland named Elishama. Elishama flees the pogroms in Poland as a child and somehow ends up in Canton. In London, Elishama learns to do double-entry bookkeeping, and ends...