Abroad with Mark Twain and Eugene Field/Mark at the Stock Exchange, Vienna
MARK AT THE STOCK EXCHANGE, VIENNA
A day or two after I sent Clemens my translation of Field Marshal Count Moltke's Letters, he called at my hotel in the forenoon and proposed that we walk to the stock exchange. The stock exchange, as usual, was swarming with gentlemen of the Jewish persuasion, and Mark asked me to pay particular attention to them.
"They are the smartest of the lot here," he insisted, "and so is a Jewish peddler smarter than a Christian house-owner—I mean the average. I say it again; the Jews are the greatest people let loose.
"According to Moltke's essay in the Letters you sent me, the Jews ate up Poland. Very well, the storks eat up frogs. Do we blame the storks?"