Children of the Ghetto

when I have my pen in hand, do you listen to me. As the proverb says, if I were a Rabbi the town would burn. But if you were a scribe the letter would burn. I don't pretend to be a Maggid, don't you set up to be a letter writer.'

'Well, but do you think it's honorable?'

'Hear, O Israel!' cried the Shalotten Shammos, spreading out his palms impatiently. 'Haven't I written letters for twenty years?'

The Maggid was silenced. He walked on brooding. 'And what is this place, Burnmud, I ask to go to?' he inquired.

'Bournemouth,' corrected the other. 'It is a place on the South coast where all the most aristocratic consumptives go.'

'But it must be very dear,' said the poor Maggid, affrighted.

'Dear? Of course it's dear,' said the Shalotten Shammos pompously. 'But shall we consider expense where your health is concerned?'

The Maggid felt so grateful he was almost ashamed to ask whether he could eat kosher there, but the Shalotten Shammos, who had the air of a tall encyclopaedia, set his soul at rest on all points.

CHAPTER XIII. SUGARMAN'S BAR-MITZVAH PARTY.

The day of Ebenezer Sugarman's Bar-mitzvah duly arrived. All his sins would henceforth be on his own head and everybody rejoiced. By the Friday evening so many presents had arrived-four breastpins, two rings, six pocket-knives, three sets of Machzorim or Festival Prayer- books, and the like-that his father barred up the door very carefully and in the middle of the night, hearing a mouse scampering across the floor, woke up in a cold sweat and threw open the bedroom window and cried 'Ho! Buglers!' But the 'Buglers' made no sign of being scared, everything was still and nothing purloined, so Jonathan took a reprimand from his disturbed wife and curled himself up again in bed.

Sugarman did things in style and through the influence of a client the confirmation ceremony was celebrated in 'Duke's Plaizer Shool.' Ebenezer, who was tall and weak-eyed, with lank black hair, had a fine new black cloth suit and a beautiful silk praying-shawl with blue stripes, and a glittering watch-chain and a gold ring and a nice new Prayer-book with gilt edges, and all the boys under thirteen made up their minds to grow up and be responsible for their sins as quick as possible. Ebenezer walked up to the Reading Desk with a dauntless stride and intoned his Portion of the Law with no more tremor than was necessitated by the musical roulades, and then marched upstairs, as bold as brass, to his mother, who was sitting up in the gallery, and who gave him a loud smacking kiss that could be heard in the four corners of the synagogue, just as if she were a real lady.

Then there was the Bar-mitzvah breakfast, at which Ebenezer delivered an English sermon and a speech, both openly written by the Shalotten Shammos, and everybody commended the boy's beautiful sentiments and the beautiful language in which they were couched. Mrs. Sugarman forgot all the trouble Ebenezer had given her in the face of his assurances of respect and affection and she wept copiously. Having only one eye she could not see what her Jonathan saw, and what was spoiling his enjoyment of Ebenezer's effusive gratitude to his dear parents for having trained him up in lofty principles.

It was chiefly male cronies who had been invited to breakfast, and the table had been decorated with biscuits and fruit and sweets not appertaining to the meal, but provided for the refreshment of the less-favored visitors-such as Mr. and Mrs. Hyams-who would be dropping in during the day. Now, nearly every one of the guests had brought a little boy with him, each of whom stood like a page behind his father's chair.

Before starting on their prandial fried fish, these trencher-men took from the dainties wherewith the ornamental plates were laden and gave thereof to their offspring. Now this was only right and proper, because it is the prerogative of children to 'nash' on these occasions. But as the meal progressed, each father from time to time, while talking briskly to his neighbor, allowed his hand to stray mechanically into the plates and thence negligently backwards into the hand of his infant, who stuffed the treasure into his pockets. Sugarman fidgeted about uneasily; not one surreptitious seizure escaped him, and every one pricked him like a needle. Soon his soul grew punctured like a pin-cushion. The Shalotten Shammos was among the worst offenders, and he covered his back-handed proceedings with a ceaseless flow of complimentary conversation.

'Excellent fish, Mrs. Sugarman,' he said, dexterously slipping some almonds behind his chair.

'What?' said Mrs. Sugarman, who was hard of hearing.

'First-class plaice!' shouted the Shalotten Shammos, negligently conveying a bunch of raisins.

'So they ought to be,' said Mrs. Sugarman in her thin tinkling accents, 'they were all alive in the pan.'

'Ah, did they twitter?' said Mr. Belcovitch, pricking up his ears.

'No,' Bessie interposed. 'What do you mean?'

'At home in my town,' said Mr. Belcovitch impressively, 'a fish made a noise in the pan one Friday.'

'Well? and suppose?' said the Shalotten Shammos, passing a fig to the rear, 'the oil frizzles.'

'Nothing of the kind,' said Belcovitch angrily, 'A real living noise. The woman snatched it out of the pan and ran with it to the Rabbi. But he did not know what to do. Fortunately there was staying with him for the Sabbath a travelling Saint from the far city of Ridnik, a Chasid, very skilful in plagues and purifications, and able to make clean a creeping thing by a hundred and fifty reasons. He directed the woman to wrap the fish in a shroud and give it honorable burial as quickly as possible. The funeral took place the same afternoon and a lot of people went in solemn procession to the woman's back garden and buried it with all seemly rites, and the knife with which it had been cut was buried in the same grave, having been defiled by contact with the demon. One man said it should be burned, but that was absurd because the demon would be only too glad to find itself in its native element, but to prevent Satan from rebuking the woman any more its mouth was stopped with furnace ashes. There was no time to obtain Palestine earth, which would have completely crushed the demon.'

'The woman must have committed some Avirah' said Karlkammer.

'A true story!' said the Shalotten Shammos, ironically. 'That tale has been over Warsaw this twelvemonth.'

'It occurred when I was a boy,' affirmed Belcovitch indignantly. 'I remember it quite well. Some people explained it favorably. Others were of opinion that the soul of the fishmonger had transmigrated into the fish, an opinion borne out by the death of the fishmonger a few days before. And the Rabbi is still alive to prove it-may his light continue to shine-though they write that he has lost his memory.'

The Shalotten Shammos sceptically passed a pear to his son. Old Gabriel Hamburg, the scholar, came compassionately to the raconteur's assistance.

'Rabbi Solomon Maimon,' he said, 'has left it on record that he witnessed a similar funeral in Posen.'

'It was well she buried it,' said Karlkammer. 'It was an atonement for a child, and saved its life.'

The Shalotten Shammos laughed outright.

'Ah, laugh not,' said Mrs. Belcovitch. 'Or you might laugh with blood. It isn't for my own sins that I was born with ill-matched legs.'

'I must laugh when I hear of God's fools burying fish anywhere but in their stomach,' said the Shalotten Shammos, transporting a Brazil nut to the rear, where it was quickly annexed by Solomon Ansell, who had sneaked in uninvited and ousted the other boy from his coign of vantage.

The conversation was becoming heated; Breckeloff turned the topic.

'My sister has married a man who can't play cards,' he said lugubriously.

'How lucky for her,' answered several voices.

'No, it's just her black luck,' he rejoined. 'For he will play.'

There was a burst of laughter and then the company remembered that Breckeloff was a Badchan or jester.