Children of the Ghetto

CHAPTER IV. THE REDEMPTION OF THE SON AND THE DAUGHTER.

Malka did not have long to wait for her liege lord. He was a fresh-colored young man of thirty, rather good- looking, with side whiskers, keen, eager glance, and an air of perpetually doing business. Though a native of Germany, he spoke English as well as many Lane Jews, whose comparative impiety was a certificate of British birth. Michael Birnbaum was a great man in the local little synagogue if only one of the crowd at 'Duke's Plaizer.' He had been successively Gabbai and Parnass, or treasurer and president, and had presented the plush curtain, with its mystical decoration of intersecting triangles, woven in silk, that hung before the Ark in which the scrolls of the Law were kept. He was the very antithesis of Moses Ansell. His energy was restless. From hawking he had risen to a profitable traffic in gold lace and Brummagem jewelry, with a large clientele all over the country, before he was twenty. He touched nothing which he did not profit by; and when he married, at twenty-three, a woman nearly twice his age, the transaction was not without the usual percentage. Very soon his line was diamonds,-real diamonds. He carried, a pocket-knife which was a combination of a corkscrew, a pair of scissors, a file, a pair of tweezers, a toothpick, and half a dozen other things, and which seemed an epitome of his character. His temperament was lively, and, like Ephraim Phillips, he liked music-halls. Fortunately, Malka was too conscious of her charms to dream of jealousy.

Michael smacked her soundly on the mouth with his lips and said: 'Well, mother!'

He called her mother, not because he had any children, but because she had, and it seemed a pity to multiply domestic nomenclature.

'Well, my little one,' said Malka, hugging him fondly. 'Have you made a good journey this time?'

'No, trade is so dull. People won't put their hands in their pockets. And here?'

'People won't take their hands out of their pockets, lazy dogs! Everybody is striking,-Jews with them. Unheard-of things! The bootmakers, the capmakers, the furriers! And now they say the tailors are going to strike; more fools, too, when the trade is so slack. What with one thing and another (let me put your cravat straight, my little love), it's just the people who can't afford to buy new clothes that are hard up, so that they can't afford to buy second-hand clothes either. If the Almighty is not good to us, we shall come to the Board of Guardians ourselves.'

'Not quite so bad as that, mother,' laughed Michael, twirling the massive diamond ring on his finger. 'How's baby? Is it ready to be redeemed?'

'Which baby?' said Malka, with well-affected agnosticism.

'Phew!' whistled Michael. 'What's up now, mother?'

'Nothing, my pet, nothing.'

'Well, I'm going across. Come along, mother. Oh, wait a minute. I want to brush this mud off my trousers. Is the clothes-brush here?'

'Yes, dearest one,' said the unsuspecting Malka.

Michael winked imperceptibly, flicked his trousers, and without further parley ran across the diagonal to Milly's house. Five minutes afterwards a deputation, consisting of a char-woman, waited upon Malka and said:

'Missus says will you please come over, as baby is a-cryin' for its grandma.'

'Ah, that must be another pin,' said Malka, with a gleam of triumph at her victory. But she did not budge. At the end of five minutes she rose solemnly, adjusted her wig and her dress in the mirror, put on her bonnet, brushed away a non-existent speck of dust from her left sleeve, put a peppermint in her mouth, and crossed the Square, carrying the clothes-brush in her hand. Milly's door was half open, but she knocked at it and said to the char- woman:

'Is Mrs. Phillips in?'

'Yes, mum, the company's all upstairs.'

'Oh, then I will go up and return her this myself.'

Malka went straight through the little crowd of guests to Milly, who was sitting on a sofa with Ezekiel, quiet as a lamb and as good as gold, in her arms.

'Milly, my dear,' she said. 'I have come to bring you back your clothes-brush. Thank you so much for the loan of it.'

'You know you're welcome, mother,' said Milly, with unintentionally dual significance. The two ladies embraced. Ephraim Phillips, a sallow-looking, close-cropped Pole, also kissed his mother-in-law, and the gold chain that rested on Malka's bosom heaved with the expansion of domestic pride. Malka thanked God she was not a mother of barren or celibate children, which is only one degree better than personal unfruitfulness, and testifies scarce less to the celestial curse.

'Is that pin-mark gone away yet, Milly, from the precious little thing?' said Malka, taking Ezekiel in her arms and disregarding the transformation of face which in babies precedes a storm.

'Yes, it was a mere flea-bite,' said Milly incautiously, adding hurriedly, 'I always go through his flannels and things most carefully to see there are no more pins lurking about.'

'That is right! Pins are like fleas-you never know where they get to,' said Malka in an insidious spirit of compromise. 'Where is Leah?'

'She is in the back yard frying the last of the fish. Don't you smell it?'

'It will hardly have time to get cold.'

'Well, but I did a dishful myself last night. She is only preparing a reserve in case the attack be too deadly.'

'And where is the Cohen?'

'Oh, we have asked old Hyams across the Ruins. We expect him round every minute.'

At this point the indications of Ezekiel's facial barometer were fulfilled, and a tempest of weeping shook him.

'Na! Go then! Go to the mother,' said Malka angrily. 'All my children are alike. It's getting late. Hadn't you better send across again for old Hyams?'

'There's no hurry, mother,' said Michael Birnbaum soothingly. 'We must wait for Sam.'

'And who's Sam?' cried Malka unappeased.

'Sam is Leah's Chosan,' replied Michael ingenuously.

'Clever!' sneered Malka. 'But my grandson is not going to wait for the son of a proselyte. Why doesn't he come?'

'He'll be here in one minute.'

'How do you know?'

'We came up in the same train. He got in at Middlesborough. He's just gone home to see his folks, and get a wash and a brush-up. Considering he's coming up to town merely for the sake of the family ceremony, I think it would be very rude to commence without him. It's no joke, a long railway journey this weather. My feet were nearly frozen despite the foot-warmer.'

'My poor lambkin,' said Malka, melting. And she patted his side whiskers.

Sam Levine arrived almost immediately, and Leah, fishfork in hand, flew out of the back-yard kitchen to greet him. Though a member of the tribe of Levi, he was anything but ecclesiastical in appearance, rather a representative of muscular Judaism. He had a pink and white complexion, and a tawny moustache, and bubbled over with energy and animal spirits. He could give most men thirty in a hundred in billiards, and fifty in anecdote. He was an advanced Radical in politics, and had a high opinion of the intelligence of his party. He paid Leah lip-fealty on his entry.

'What a pity it's Sunday!' was Leah's first remark when the kissing was done.

'No going to the play,' said Sam ruefully, catching her meaning.

They always celebrated his return from a commercial round by going to the theatre-the-etter they pronounced it. They went to the pit of the West End houses rather than patronize the local dress circles for the same money. There were two strata of Ghetto girls, those who strolled in the Strand on Sabbath, and those who strolled in the Whitechapel Road. Leah was of the upper stratum. She was a tall lovely brunette, exuberant of voice and figure, with coarse red hands. She doted on ice-cream in the summer, and hot chocolate in the winter, but her