Part 21 (1/2)

And yet it's the last thing their menkind think of till I remind them of it on their return.'

'_I_ certainly brought back none,' said the _Parna.s.s_, smiling in spite of himself.

'You have been in India?'

'I have,' replied the _Parna.s.s_, with a happy inspiration, 'and I brought back to my wife something more stimulating than chutney.'

'Indeed?'

'Yes, the story of the Beni-Israel, the black Jews, who, surrounded by all those millions of Hindoos, still keep their Sabbath.'

'Ah, poor n.i.g.g.e.rs. Then you've been half round the world.'

'_All_ round the world, for I went there and back by different routes.

And it was most touching, wherever I went, to find everywhere a colony of Jews, and everywhere the Holy Sabbath kept sacred.'

'But on different days, of course,' said Simeon Samuels.

'Eh? Not at all! On the same day.'

'On the same day! How could that be? The day changes with every move east or west. When it's day here, it's night in Australia.'

Darkness began to cloud the presidential brow.

'Don't you try to make black white!' he said angrily.

'It's you that are trying to make white black,' retorted Simeon Samuels. 'Perhaps you don't know that I hail from Australia, and that by working on Sat.u.r.day I escape profaning my native Australian Sabbath, while you, who have been all round the world, and have either lost or gained a day, according as you travelled east or west, are desecrating your original Sabbath either by working on Friday or smoking on Sunday.'

The _Parna.s.s_ felt his head going round--he didn't know whether east or west. He tried to clear it by a pinch of snuff, which he in vain strove to make judicial.

'Oh, and so, and so--atchew!--and so you're the saint and I'm the sinner!' he cried sarcastically.

'No, I don't profess to be a saint,' replied Simeon Samuels somewhat unexpectedly. 'But I do think the Sat.u.r.day was meant for Palestine, not for the lands of the Exile, where another day of rest rules. When you were in India you probably noted that the Mohammedans keep Friday.

A poor Jew in the bazaar is robbed of his Hindoo customers on Friday, of his Jews on Sat.u.r.day, and his Christians on Sunday.'

'The Fourth Commandment is eternal!' said the _Parna.s.s_ with obstinate sublimity.

'But the Fifth says, ”that thy days may be long in the land which the Lord thy G.o.d giveth thee.” I believe this reward belongs to all the first five Commandments--not only to the Fifth--else an orphan would have no chance of long life. Keep the Sabbath in the land that the Lord giveth thee; not in England, which isn't thine.'

'Oho!' retorted the _Parna.s.s_. 'Then at that rate in England you needn't honour your father and mother.'

'Not if you haven't got them!' rejoined Simeon Samuels. 'And if you haven't got a land, you can't keep its Sabbath. Perhaps you think we can keep the Jubilee also without a country.'

'The Sabbath is eternal,' repeated the _Parna.s.s_ doggedly. 'It has nothing to do with countries. Before we got to the Promised Land we kept the Sabbath in the wilderness.'

'Yes, and G.o.d sent a double dose of manna on the Friday. Do you mean to say He sends us here a double dose of profit?'

'He doesn't let us starve. We prospered well enough before you brought your wretched example----'