“In these very scales shalt thou weigh me out,” said the relentless Baron, “a thousand silver pounds, after the just measure and weight of the Tower of London .”

“Holy Abraham!” returned the Jew, finding voice through the very extremity of his danger, “heard man ever such a demand?⁠—Who ever heard, even in a minstrel’s tale, of such a sum as a thousand pounds of silver?⁠—What human sight was ever blessed with the vision of such a mass of treasure?⁠—Not within the walls of York , ransack my house and that of all my tribe, wilt thou find the tithe of that huge sum of silver that thou speakest of.”

“I am reasonable,” answered Front-de-Boeuf, “and if silver be scant, I refuse not gold. At the rate of a mark of gold for each six pounds of silver, thou shalt free thy unbelieving carcass from such punishment as thy heart has never even conceived.”