ONE evening at dinner, about a fortnight later, “What’s the matter, Elias?” the rabbi asked. “You’re not feeling sick, are you? Or blue? Or worried about any thing?”

“Why, no,” Elias answered, “I feel all right. Why do you ask?”

“Oh, I don’t know. I thought you were looking a little out-of-sorts. Likely enough, it was only an idea.”

“The truth is,” Elias presently volunteered, “that, so far from feeling blue or low-spirited or anything of that kind, I don’t seem to feel much of any thing at all. I’m sort of sluggish—dull—dead-and-alive. I’d give a good deal for a sensation, an excitement. I’ve been feeling this way pretty much all the time since—for the last two weeks. Heavy, thick, as though my blood had stopped circulating. I wish you’d stick a pin into me.”

“Oh, you need a little amusement, a little fun, something to take you out of yourself. That’s all. Why don’t you go to the theater?”

“No, thanks. I’m not fond of the theater. Besides, it’s too hot.”

“Well, then, why don’t you make a call?”

“A call! Pshaw; is that your notion of excitement?”

“Well, it’s better than sitting at home, and moping, isn’t it?”

“And, any how, whom do I know to call on?”

“Whom do you know? Mercy upon me! I could name fifty people, whom you not only know, but to whom you actually owe calls. It’s really abominable, the way you neglect, and always have neglected, your social duties. There’s no excuse for it. If—if you were an old recluse like me, it would be different.”

“I don’t see how. What if you were a young recluse, like me?”

“Ah, but nobody has a right to be a young recluse. It is only when we get along in years, that we are entitled to withdraw from the world. Besides, it’s narrowing, it’s hardening. You need contact with other people, to broaden your mind, and keep your sympathies alive. If you avoid society while you’re young, the milk of human kindness will dry up in your bosom. You’ll get coldblooded, selfish, indifferent.” Which amiable sentiments, falling from the lips of the rabbi, possessed a peculiar interest. “Come,” he added, “run up-stairs, and put on your best suit, and go make a call.”

“Again I ask, whom on?”

“On—on anybody. I’ll tell you whom. Call on Mr. and Mrs. Koch.”

The pronunciation of this name has been anglicized into Coach.

“Which Koch? A. Hamilton?”

“No, of course not. Washington I.”

“Oh, heavens! I haven’t called on them these two years. I’d be afraid to show my face inside their door. They’d overwhelm me with reproaches.”

“Well, what of that? You could stand it, I guess. They’re very nice people, the Kochs; people whom it is worth while to be on good terms with—so warm-hearted and unpretentious, and yet with their hundreds of thousands behind them. There isn’t a smarter business man in New York City than Washington I. Koch, nor a more honest, nor a more open-handed. Look at that stained glass window he gave the congregation. And then, at the same time, he’s a man of ideas, a well-informed man; and best of all, he’s a pious Jew.”

“Well, I’ll tell you what I’ll do,” said Elias; “I’ll call on them, if you’ll come along.”

“I! Nonsense! I called on them last New-Year’s, and shall call again next. That’s the most that can be expected of me.”

“Well, I shouldn’t dare to go alone. If you’d come along, to keep me in countenance, I’d go. But alone—no, never.”

There was an interval of silence. Suddenly the rabbi said, “Well, I declare, I’ll do it. I’ll do it, just to encourage you. There; let’s go up-stairs and dress.”

Pretty soon they left the house and sauntered westward arm-in-arm. Elias wore the Prince Albert coat that he had had made to be married in.

It was a hot night, and it had all the qualities characteristic of a hot night in New York. The air was redolent of bursting ailanthus buds. Strains of music, more or less musical, were wafted from every point of the compass—from behind open windows, where people sang, or played pianos; from the blazing depths of German concert saloons, where cracked-voiced orchestrions thundered discord; from the street corners, where itinerant bands halted, and blew themselves red in the face; and from the indeterminate distance, where belated hand-organs wailed with mechanical melancholy. Third Avenue, into which thoroughfare Elias and the rabbi presently turned, was thronged by many sorts and conditions of men and women clad in light summer gear, and drifting onward in light, languid, summer fashion. It was intensely hot and oppressive; and yet, somehow, it was productive of a certain unmistakable exhilaration. The sense one got of busy, teeming human life, was penetrating and enlivening.

They walked up to Eighteenth Street, where they took the Elevated Railway. At Fifty-ninth Street they descended, and thence proceeded to Lexington Avenue. On Lexington Avenue, just above Sixty-first Street, the Kochs resided. Out on the stoops of most of the houses that they passed, the inmates were seated, resting, gossiping, trying to cool off—the ladies in white dresses, the gentlemen often in their shirt-sleeves. Here and there, some of them were partaking of refreshments; beer, sandwiches, or cheese that savored of the Rhine. Here and there, some of them had fallen asleep. Here and there, a couple of young folks made surreptitious love, and, consumed by inner fires, forgot the outer heat. A pervasive odor, compounded of tobacco smoke and eau-de-cologne, assailed the nostrils. What snatches of conversation could be overheard, were either in German, or in English pronounced with a strong German accent.

They rang the Kochs’ door-bell, and were ushered by a white-capped, flaxen-haired M?dchen into the drawing-room.

The drawing-room was gorgeously and elaborately over-furnished. A bewildering arabesque, in gold, vermilion, and purple, decorated the ceiling. A dark, pseudo-?sthetic paper, bearing huge pink apricots embossed upon a ground of olive-green, covered the walls. The gas fixtures were of brass, wrought into an intricate design, and burnished to the highest possible brilliancy. The globes were alternately of ruby and emerald tinted glass. There were a good many pictures; two or three family portraits in charcoal, and several bits of color. Of the latter, the one above the mantelpiece was the largest. A blaze of crimson and orange, deep-set in a massive gilt frame, it proved, on close inspection, to be a specimen of worsted-work; and represented, as a device embroidered upon the margin testified, the Queen of Sheba playing before Solomon. The Queen had beautiful gambooge hair, and ultramarine eyes. Her harp was of ivory, with strings of silver; her costume, décolleté, of indigo velvet, trimmed profusely with handsome gold lace. Solomon—it is to be hoped, for his own sake, that Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like this flamboyant effigy of himself. In a robe of gold brocade, lined with scarlet satin, and bearing upon his brow a richly bejeweled crown, that must certainly have weighed in the neighborhood of twenty pounds, the sagacious monarch looked wretchedly hot and uncomfortable. The rest of this apartment was in perfect keeping. The chairs were of ebony, upholstered in stamped red velvet.

Before long Mr. Koch came in. He wore alligator-skin slippers, and a jacket of pongee silk. Between the fingers of his left hand, he carried a half-smoked cigar. He was a short, thick-set, pale-complexioned man, of forty, or thereabouts; inclined to baldness; with clear, light-gray eyes, and a straw-colored mustache waxed in the style of the Second Empire. He looked very clean, very alert, very good-tempered, and yet as though he could become as hard and as sharp as flint, if occasion demanded. He welcomed the rabbi with warm and deferential courtesy. Then, turning to Elias, in hearty, jovial, hail-fellow-well-met manner: “Well, Mr. Bacharach, how goes it? It’s a dog’s age since we’ve seen you, and no mistake. Have a cigar?”

With one hand, he was subjecting Elias’s arm to a vigorous pumping. With the other, he offered him a tortoise-shell cigar-case.

“They’re genuine,” he remarked. “I’ll warrant them. Imported by my brother-in-law for his private consumption. Cost you a quarter apiece straight, if you bought them in New York. Hoyo de Montereys.”

Elias selected one. Mr. Koch produced a silver match-box, extracted a wax match, scratched it, and held it while his guest got his cigar alight.

“Now,” said he, flirting the match flame into extinction, “I’m going to ask you gentlemen to step down stairs to the basement. You’ll find the whole family down there, engaged in an impressive ceremony. They’re bidding good-night to the baby, whom my wife is about to put to bed.”

In the basement, or dining-room (which, in the Koch establishment, pursuant to a common Jewish habit, was made to serve also as a general sitting-room), as many as seven or eight ladies and gentlemen, some seated, some standing, were gathered around the extension-table, upon which, in the approximate center of it, sprawled a fair, fat, two-year-old baby. The spectators were all smiling benevolently at him, addressing complimentary remarks to him, and exchanging complimentary notes about him among themselves. All the gentlemen were smoking.

“Lester, was you a good boy?”

“Mein Gott! He kroes bigger every day.”

“Laistair, was you sleeby?”

“Tust look at that smile! Ain’t it perfectly grand?”

“Laistair, haif you got a kiss for grainpa, before you go to bed?”

And so forth, and so forth: all of which Master Lester acknowledged with a vague grin, and a gutteral goo-goo-goo.

But at the entrance of Mr. Koch, flanked by Elias and the rabbi, the whole company deserted Lester, and making a rush forward, surrounded the visitors. The rabbi, every body greeted with subdued respect, as was due to his sacerdotal quality. But over Elias, they gushed.

Mrs. Koch, a thin, wiry little woman, with a prominent nose and a pleasant manner, piped in her shrill treble: “Oh, Meester Bacharach! I didn’t naifer expaict to haif this honor. I ain’t seen you in this house for two—for three—years, already: dot time you called with your mamma.”

Mrs. Koch’s mother, Mrs. Blum, a dumpy, rubicund old lady, with rather a sly, rollicking air about her, held his hand, and swayed her head like an inverted pendulum from side to side, and smiled incredulously, and kept repeating, “Vail, vail, vail!”

Then came sprightly Mr. Blum, short, corpulent, and florid, like his wife; with a glossy bald pate, a drooping white mustache, and white mutton-chop whiskers, which left exposed a very red and shiny double chin. “My kracious? Was dot Elias Bacharach? Du lieber Gott! How you haif krown, since laist time you was here!” He held Elias off at arm’s-length, and scrutinized him carefully. “Excuse me,” he demanded all at once; “where you get dot coat mait? Washington, come over here, and look at Elias Bacharach’s coat. Dem must be Chairman goots, hey?” He plucked at the material of the unfortunate garment with his thumb and forefinger, and stroked it with the palm of h............