258, 260.]-- Symptomatic, surely, of a haggly settlement, these THREE shots instead of one!--"Voltaire's return is:-- -- "'Pour quittance generale de tout compte solde entre nous, tout paye au sieur abraham hersch a berlin, 16 Decembre, 1750 .-- Voltaire'-- "'Account all settled between us, payment of the Sieur Abraham Hirsch in full: Berlin, 16th Deember, 1750.' [which Second Piece, we perceive, is to lie in Hirsch's hand, to keep, if he find it valuable].
"This 'COMPLETE SETTLEMENT,'-- little less than miraculous to Voltaire and us,--one finds, after sifting, to have been the fruit of Voltaire's exquisite skill in treating and tuning his Hirsch (no harshness of rebuke, rather some gleam of hope, of future bargains, help at Court): (Your expenses; compensation for protesting of that Bill on Paris?
Tush, cannot we make all that good! In the first place, I will BUY of you these Jewels [this one discovers to have been the essence of the operation!], all or the best part of them, which I have here in pawn for Papa's Bill: 650 pounds was it not?
Well, suppose I on the instant take 450 pounds worth, or so, of these Jewels (I want a great many jewels); and you to pay me down a 200 or so of gold LOUIS as balance,--gold LOUIS, no, we will say FREDERICS rather.

There now, that is settled.
Nothing more between us but settles itself, if we continue friends!' Upon which Hirsch walked home, thankful for the good job in Jewels; wondering only what the Allowance for Expenses and Compensation will be.

And Voltaire steps out, new-burnished, into the Royal Carnival splendors, with a load rolled from his mind.
"This COMPLETE SETTLEMENT, meanwhile, rests evidently on two legs, both of which are hollow.

'What will the handsome Compensation be, I wonder ?' thinks Hirsch;--and is horror-struck to find shortly, that Voltaire considers 60 thalers (about 9 pounds) will be the fair sum! 'More than ten times that!' is Hirsch's privately fixed idea.

On the other hand, Voltaire has been asking himself, 'My 450 pounds worth of Jewels, were they justly valued, though ?' Jew Ephraim (exaggerative and an enemy to this Hirsch House) answers, 'Justly?
I would give from 300 pounds to 250 pounds for them!'-- So that the legs both crumbling to powder, Complete Settlement crashes down into chaos: and there ensues,"-- But we must endeavor to be briefer! There ensues, for about a week following, such an inextricable scramble between the Sieur Hirsch and M.de Voltaire as,--as no reader, not himself in the Jew-Bill line, or paid for understanding it, could consent to have explained to him.