Part 16 (1/2)

'Is your mouth shut?' Solomon replied scathingly. 'I doubt if he'll even come to _Shool_ (synagogue) to-morrow.'

The ministerial mouth remained open in a fishy gasp, but no words came from it.

'I'm afraid you'll have to use stronger language, Mr. Gabriel,' said the _Parna.s.s_ soothingly.

'But if he is not there to hear it.'

'Oh, don't listen to Barzinsky. He'll be there right enough. Just give it to him hot!'

'Your sermon was too general,' added Peleg, who had lingered, though his son had not. 'You might have meant any of us.'

'But we must not shame our brother in public,' urged the minister. 'It is written in the Talmud that he who does so has no share in the world to come.'

'Well, you shamed us all,' retorted Barzinsky. 'A stranger would imagine we were a congregation of Sabbath-breakers.'

'But there wasn't any stranger,' said the minister.

'There was Simeon Samuels,' the _Parna.s.s_ reminded him. 'Perhaps your sermon against Sabbath-breaking made him fancy he was just one of a crowd, and that you have therefore only hardened him----'

'But you told me to preach against Sabbath-breaking,' said the poor minister.

'Against the Sabbath-breaker,' corrected the _Parna.s.s_.

'You didn't single him out,' added Barzinsky; 'you didn't even make it clear that Joseph wasn't myself.'

'I said Joseph was a goodly person and well-favoured,' retorted the goaded minister.

The _Parna.s.s_ took snuff, and his sneeze sounded like a guffaw.

'Well, well,' he said more kindly, 'you must try again to-morrow.'

'I didn't undertake to preach every Sat.u.r.day,' grumbled the minister, growing bolder.

'As long as Simeon Samuels keeps open, you can't shut,' said Solomon angrily.

'It's a duel between you,' added Peleg.

'And Simeon actually comes into to-morrow's _Sedrah_' (portion), Barzinsky remembered exultantly. '”And took from them Simeon, and bound him before their eyes.” There's your very text. You'll pick out Simeon from among us, and bind him to keep the Sabbath.'

'Or you can say Satan has taken Simeon and bound him,' added the _Parna.s.s_. 'You have a choice--yourself or Satan.'

'Perhaps you had better preach yourself, then,' said the minister sullenly. 'I still can't see what that text has to do with Sabbath-breaking.'

'It has as much to do with Sabbath-breaking as Potiphar's wife,'

shrieked Solomon Barzinsky.

VI

'”And Jacob their father said unto them, Me have ye bereaved. Joseph is not, and Simeon is not, and ye will take Benjamin.”'