Life's Masquerade Author:Life General Books publication date: 2009 Original publication date: 1867 Notes: This is a black and white OCR reprint of the original. It has no illustrations and there may be typos or missing text. When you buy the General Books edition of this book you get free trial access to Million-Books.com where you can select from more than a million book... more »s for free. Excerpt: CHAPTER III. NATHANIEL SLOMAN. There had been sent from London, with Hamilton, two clerks, of whom one was named Gamyn, and the other Sloman. The first was a red-headed, pink-cheeked young man, harmless, willing, and about nineteen years old. The other was dark, with a hooked nose, a keen cunning eye, ringlets, long arms and fingers, and to crown all, he possessed a hump. The two young men when they had first settled at Y , occupied the same lodgings. But after they had lived together for a week they quarrelled, and Sloman turned Gamyn out to look for other accommodation. Sloman, though not a Jew, had Jewish blood circulating in his veins. Of this he was ashamed. His features plainly spoke his origin; nevertheless he imagined that by going to church people would take him to be a Christian. Thiswas his religion: to avoid being considered a Jew. Though his hump , was irksome, he sometimes laughed at it. Though his arms and fingers were unusually long, he boasted that they possessed uncommon strength; sometimes he would congratulate himself before others upon being possessed of these members, and would deride those whose limbs were in proportion. Hence it will be seen, that though his deformity was an unpleasant, it was not a sore subject. But to call him a Jew was to convert him into a dangerous enemy. This was an insult he never forgave or forgot. Once only had it occurred to him. When in the bank in London, a young clerk, provoked by something he had said, retorted by calling him a Jew. The next day a twenty-pound note was found missing from the till. All the clerks were compelled to stop until...« less