His bill for midnight oil must have been extraordinary, for he was a business man and had to earn his living by day.

Kept within the limits of sanity by a religion without apocalyptic visions, he was saved from predicting the end of the world by mystic calculations, but he used them to prove everything else and fervently believed that endless meanings were deducible from the numerical value of Biblical words, that not a curl at the tail of a letter of any word in any sentence but had its supersubtle significance.

The elaborate cipher with which Bacon is alleged to have written Shakspeare's plays was mere child's play compared with the infinite revelations which in Karlkammer's belief the Deity left latent in writing the Old Testament from Genesis to Malachi, and in inspiring the Talmud and the holier treasures of Hebrew literature.

Nor were these ideas of his own origination.

His was an eclectic philosophy and religionism, of which all the elements were discoverable in old Hebrew books: scraps of Alexandrian philosophy inextricably blent with Aristotelian, Platonic, mystic.
He kept up a copious correspondence with scholars in other countries and was universally esteemed and pitied.
"We haven't come to discuss the figures of the _Maggid's_ name, but of his salary." said Mr.Belcovitch, who prided himself on his capacity for conducting public business.
"I have examined the finances," said Karlkammer, "and I don't see how we can possibly put aside more for our preacher than the pound a week." "But he is not satisfied," said Mr.Belcovitch.
"I don't see why he shouldn't be," said the Shalotten _Shammos_.