Part 37 (1/2)

'I offered her another man, and she slammed the door in my face!'

'You--you offered----' Elias stuttered angrily.

'Only to test her,' said Sugarman soothingly. He continued: 'Now, when she has eaten the cake and drunk a cup of chocolate, too (for one must play high with such a ring at stake), you must walk on by her side, and when you come to a dark corner, take her hand and say ”My treasure” or ”My angel,” or whatever nonsense you modern young men babble to your maidens--with the results you see!--and while she is drinking it all in like more chocolate, her fingers in yours, give a sudden tug, and off comes the ring!'

Elias gazed at him in admiration. 'You are as crafty as Jacob, our father.'

'Heaven has not denied everybody brains,' replied Sugarman modestly.

'Be careful to seize the left hand.'

The admiring Elias followed the scheme to the letter.

Even the blush he had boggled at came to his cheeks punctually whenever his sheep's-eyes met f.a.n.n.y's. He was so surprised to find his face burning that he looked foolish into the bargain.

They dallied long in the cake-shop, Elias trying to summon up courage for the final feint. He would get a good grip on the ring finger. The tug-of-war should be brief.

Meantime the couple clinked chocolate cups, and smiled into each other's eyes.

'The good-for-nothing!' thought Elias hotly. 'She will make the same eyes at the next man.'

And he went on gorging her, every speculative 'stuffed monkey'

increasing his nervous tension. Her white teeth, biting recklessly into the cake, made him itch to slap her rosy cheek. Confectionery palled at last, and f.a.n.n.y led the way out. Elias followed, chattering with feverish gaiety. Gradually he drew up even with her.

They turned down the deserted Fishmonger's Alley, lit by one dull gas-lamp. Elias's limbs began to tremble with the excitement of the critical moment. He felt like a footpad. Hither and thither he peered--n.o.body was about. But--was he on the right side of her? 'The right is the left,' he told himself, trying to smile, but his pulses thumped, and in the tumult of heart and brain he was not sure he knew her right hand from her left. Fortunately he caught the glitter of the diamond in the gloom, and instinctively his robber hand closed upon it.

But as he felt the warm responsive clasp of those soft fingers, that ancient delicious thrill pierced every vein. Fool that he had been to doubt that dear hand! And it was wearing his ring still--she could not part with it! O blundering male ingrate!

'My treasure! My angel!' he murmured ecstatically.

THE YIDDISH 'HAMLET'

THE YIDDISH 'HAMLET'

I

The little poet sat in the East-side cafe looking six feet high.

Melchitsedek Pinchas--by dint of a five-pound note from Sir Asher Aaronsberg in acknowledgement of the dedication to him of the poet's 'Songs of Zion'--had carried his genius to the great new Jewry across the Atlantic. He had arrived in New York only that very March, and already a crowd of votaries hung upon his lips and paid for all that entered them. Again had the saying been verified that a prophet is nowhere without honour save in his own country. The play that had vainly plucked at the stage-doors of the Yiddish Theatres of Europe had already been accepted by the leading Yiddish theatre of New York.

At least there were several Yiddish Theatres, each claiming this supreme position, but the poet felt that the production of his play at Goldwater's Theatre settled the question among them.

'It is the greatest play of the generation,' he told the young socialists and free-thinkers who sat around him this Friday evening imbibing chocolate. 'It will be translated into every tongue.' He had pa.s.sed with a characteristic bound from satisfaction with the Ghetto triumph into cosmopolitan antic.i.p.ations. 'See,' he added, 'my initials make M.P.--Master Playwright.'

'Also Mud Pusher,' murmured from the next table Ostrovsky, the socialist leader, who found himself almost deserted for the new lion.

'Who is this uncombed bunco-steerer?'