Mendel Hyams was not puffed up about his tribal superiority, though if tradition were to be trusted, his direct descent from Aaron, the High Priest, gave him a longer genealogy than Queen Victoria's.

He was a meek sexagenarian, with a threadbare black coat and a child-like smile.

All the pride of the family seemed to be monopolized by his daughter Miriam, a girl whose very nose Heaven had fashioned scornful.

Miriam had accompanied him out of contemptuous curiosity.

She wore a stylish feather in her hat, and a boa round her throat, and earned thirty shillings a week, all told, as a school teacher.