What with Sugarman the _Shadchan_, on the first floor, Mrs.Simons and Dutch Debby on the second, the Belcovitches on the third, and the Ansells and Gabriel Hamburg, the great scholar, on the fourth, the door-posts twinkled with _Mezuzahs_--cases or cylinders containing sacred script with the word _Shaddai_ (Almighty) peering out of a little glass eye at the centre.

Even Dutch Debby, abandoned wretch as she was, had this protection against evil spirits (so it has come to be regarded) on her lintel, though she probably never touched the eye with her finger to kiss the place of contact after the manner of the faithful.
Thus was No.

1 Royal Street close packed with the stuff of human life, homespun and drab enough, but not altogether profitless, may be, to turn over and examine.

So close packed was it that there was scarce breathing space.

It was only at immemorial intervals that our pauper alien made a pun, but one day he flashed upon the world the pregnant remark that England was well named, for to the Jew it was verily the Enge-Land, which in German signifies the country without elbow room.