PAGE 17
The Sabbath Question In Sudminster
by
‘No, no, no,’ said Solomon soothingly. ‘You are mistaken. We are most careful not to touch money. We are going to trust our customers, and keep our accounts without pen or ink. We have invented a most ingenious system, which gives us far more work than writing, but we have determined to spare ourselves no trouble to keep the Sabbath from unnecessary desecration.’
‘And once the customers don’t pay up, your system will break down. No, no; I shall write to the Chief Rabbi.’
‘We will explain our motives,’ said Mendel.
‘Your motives need no explanation. This scandal must cease.’
‘And who are you to give orders?’ shrieked Solomon Barzinsky. ‘You’re not speaking to a Schnorrer, mind you. My banking account is every bit as big as yours. For two pins I start an opposition Shool.’
‘A Sunday Shool!’ said the Parnass sarcastically.
‘And why not? It would be better than sitting playing solo on Sundays. We are not in Palestine now.’
‘Oh, Simeon Samuels has been talking to you, has he?’
‘I don’t need Simeon Samuels’ wisdom. I’m an Englishman myself.’
XX
The desperate measures of the Sub-Committee were successful. The other marine-dealers hastened to associate themselves with the plan of campaign, and Simeon Samuels soon departed in search of a more pious seaport.
But, alas! homoeopathy was only half-vindicated. For the remedy proved worse than the disease, and the cutting-out of the original plague-spot left the other marine-stores still infected. The epidemic spread from them till it had overtaken half the shops of the congregation. Some had it in a mild form–only one shutter open, or a back door not closed–but in many it came out over the whole shop-window.
The one bright spot in the story of the Sudminster Sabbath is that the congregation of which the present esteemed Parnass is Solomon Barzinsky, Esq., J.P., managed to avert the threatened split, and that while in so many other orthodox synagogues the poor minister preaches on the Sabbath to empty benches, the Sudminster congregation still remains at the happy point of compromise acutely discovered by Simeon Samuels: of listening reverentially every Saturday morning to the unchanging principles of its minister-elect, the while its shops are engaged in supplying the wants of Christendom.