Part 35 (1/2)

'RIGHT HONOURABLE ANGELICAL MR. LEOPOLD BARSTEIN,

'I have now the honour to again solicit Your genteel genuine sympathical humane philanthropic kind cordial n.o.bility to oblige me at present by Your merciful loan of gracious second and propitious favourable aidance in my actually poor indigent position in which I have no earn by my dental practice likewise no help, also no protection, no recommendation, no employment, and then the compet.i.tion is here very violent. I was ruined by Russia, and I have nothing for the celebration of our Jewish new year. Consequentially upon your merciful archangelical donative I was able to make my livelihood by my dental practice even very difficult, but still I had my vital subsistence by it till up now, but not further for the little while, in consequence of it my circ.u.mstances are now in the urgent extreme immense need. Thus I implore Your competent, well famous good-hearted liberal magnanimous benevolent generosity to respond me in Your beneficent relief as soon as possible, according to Your kind grand clemence of Your good ingenuous genteel humanity. I wish You a happy new year.

'Your obedient servant respectfully, 'NEHEMIAH SILVERMANN, '_Dentist and Professor of Languages_.'

But when the reading was finished, Schneemann's comment was unexpected.

'_Rosh Hashanah_ so near?' he said.

A rush of Ghetto memories swamped the three artists as they tried to work out the date of the Jewish New Year, that solemn period of earthly trumpets and celestial judgments.

'Why, it must be to-day!' cried Rozenoffski suddenly. The trio looked at one another with rueful humour. Why, the Ghetto could not even realize such indifference to the heavenly tribunals so busily decreeing their life-or-death sentences!

Barstein raised his gla.s.s. 'Here's a happy new year, anyhow!' he said.

The three men clinked gla.s.ses.

Rozenoffski drew out a hundred-lire note.

'Send that to the poor devil,' he said.

'Oho!' laughed Schneemann. 'You still believe ”Charity delivers from death!” Well, I must be saved too!' And he threw down another hundred-lire note.

To the acutely a.n.a.lytical Barstein it seemed as if an old superst.i.tious thrill lay behind Schneemann's laughter as behind Rozenoffski's donation.

'You will only make the _Luftmensch_ believe still more obstinately in his Providence,' he said, as he gathered up the New Year gifts. 'Again will he declare that he has been accorded a good writing and a good sealing by the Heavenly Tribunal!'

'Well, hasn't he?' laughed Schneemann.

'Perhaps he has,' said Rozenoffski musingly. '_Qui sa?_'

THE TUG OF LOVE

THE TUG OF LOVE

When Elias Goldenberg, Belcovitch's head cutter, betrothed himself to f.a.n.n.y Fersht, the prettiest of the machinists, the Ghetto blessed the match, always excepting Sugarman the _Shadchan_ (whom love matches shocked), and Goldenberg's relatives (who considered f.a.n.n.y flighty and fond of finery).

'That f.a.n.n.y of yours was cut out for a rich man's wife,' insisted Goldenberg's aunt, shaking her pious wig.

'He who marries f.a.n.n.y _is_ rich,' retorted Elias.

'”p.a.w.n your hide, but get a bride,”' quoted the old lady savagely.

As for the slighted marriage-broker, he remonstrated almost like a relative.

'But I didn't want a negotiated marriage,' Elias protested.