He moved with dignity, bearing himself as if the contents of his massive brow were precious.

His handsome aquiline nose and keen dark eyes proclaimed his Jewish origin, of which he was ashamed.

Those who did not know this naturally believed that he was proud of it, and were at a loss to account for his permitting his children to be educated as Christians.

Well instructed in business, and subject to no emotion outside the love of family, respectability, comfort, and money, he had maintained the capital inherited from his father, and made it breed new capital in the usual way.

He was a banker, and his object as such was to intercept and appropriate the immense saving which the banking system effects, and so, as far as possible, to leave the rest of the world working just as hard as before banking was introduced.