Part 55 (1/2)

'Guard your tongue!' he murmured, terror-stricken.

David laughed on. 'You, my friend, shall be my first pupil.'

'G.o.d forbid! And I must beg you to find other lodgings.'

David smiled grimly at this first response to his mission. 'I dare say I shall find another stove,' he said cheerfully--at which the landlord, who had never in his life taken such a decisive step, began to think he had gone too far. 'You will take the advice of a man who knows the world,' he said in a tone of compromise, 'and throw all those crazy notions into the river where you cast your sins at New Year. A young, fine-looking man like you! Why, I can find you a _s.h.i.+dduch_ (marriage) that will keep you in clover the rest of your life.'

'Ha! ha! ha! How do you know I'm not married?'

'Married men don't go shooting so lightheartedly. Come, let me take you in hand; my commission is a very small percentage of the dowry.'

'Ah, so you're a regular _Shadchan_' (marriage-broker).

'And how else should I live? Do you think I get fat on this inn? But people stay here from all towns around; I get to know a great circle of marriageable parties. I can show you a much larger stock than the ordinary _Shadchan_.'

'But I am so _link_' (irreligious).

'_Nu!_ Let your ear-locks grow--the dowry grows with them.' Mine host had quite recovered his greasy familiarity.

'I can't wait for my locks to grow,' said David, with a sudden thought. 'But if you care to introduce me to Tinowitz, you will not fail to profit by it, if the thing turns out well.'

The landlord rubbed his hands. 'Now you speak like a sage.'

III

Tinowitz read the landlord's Hebrew note, and surveyed the suitor disapprovingly. And disapproval did not improve his face--a face in whose grotesque features David read a possible explanation of his surplus stock of daughters.

'I cannot say I am very taken with you,' the corn-factor said. 'Nor is it possible to give you my youngest daughter. I have other plans. Even the eldest----'

David waved his hand. 'I told my landlord as much. Am I a Talmud-sage that I should thus aspire? Forgive and forget my _Chutzpah_ (impudence)!'

'But the eldest--perhaps--with a smaller dowry----'

'To tell the truth, _Panie_ Tinowitz, it was the landlord who turned my head with false hopes. I came here not to promote marriages, but to prevent funerals!'

The corn-factor gasped, 'Funerals!'

'A _pogrom_ is threatened----'

'Open not your mouth to Satan!' reprimanded Tinowitz, growing livid.

'If you prefer silence and slaughter----' said David, with a shrug.

'It is impossible--here!'

'And why not here, as well as in the six hundred and thirty-eight other towns?'

'In those towns there must have been bad blood; here Jew and Russian live together like brothers.'

'Cain and Abel were brothers. There were many peaceful years while Cain tilled the ground and Abel pastured his sheep.'