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When, in accordance with hospitable etiquette, the new-comer was summoned canorously to the reading of the Law–‘Shall stand Simeon, the son of Nehemiah’–and he arose and solemnly mounted the central platform, his familiarity with the due obeisances and osculations and benedictions seemed a withering reply to the libel. When he descended, and the Parnass proffered his presidential hand in pious congratulation upon the holy privilege, all the congregants who found themselves upon his line of return shot forth their arms with remorseful eagerness, and thus was Simeon Samuels switched on to the brotherhood of Sudminsterian Israel. Yet as his now trusting co-religionists passed his shop on their homeward walk–and many a pair of legs went considerably out of its way to do so–their eyes became again saucers of horror and amaze. The broad plate-glass glittered nakedly, unveiled by a single shutter; the waxen dummy of the sailor hitched devil-may-care breeches; the gold lace, ticketed with layers of erased figures, boasted brazenly of its cheapness; the procession of customers came and went, and the pavement, splashed with sunshine, remained imperturbably, perturbingly acquiescent.

II

On the Sunday night Solomon Barzinsky and Ephraim Mendel in pious black velvet caps, and their stout spouses in gold chains and diamond earrings, found themselves playing solo whist in the Parnass’s parlour, and their religious grievance weighed upon the game. The Parnass, though at heart as outraged as they by the new departure, felt it always incumbent upon him to display his presidential impartiality and his dry humour. His authority, mainly based on his being the only retired shopkeeper in the community, was greatly strengthened by his slow manner of taking snuff at a crisis. ‘My dear Mendel,’ observed the wizened senior, flicking away the spilth with a blue handkerchief, ‘Simeon Samuels has already paid his annual subscription–and you haven’t!’

‘My money is good,’ Mendel replied, reddening.

‘No wonder he can pay so quickly!’ said Solomon Barzinsky, shuffling the cards savagely.

‘How he makes his money is not the question,’ said the Parnass weightily. ‘He has paid it, and therefore if I were to expel him, as you suggest, he might go to Law.’

‘Law!’ retorted Solomon. ‘Can’t we prove he has broken the Law of Moses?’

‘And suppose?’ said the Parnass, picking up his cards placidly. ‘Do we want to wash our dirty Talysim (praying-shawls) in public?’

‘He is right, Solomon,’ said Mrs. Barzinsky. ‘We should become a laughing-stock among the heathen.’

‘I don’t believe he’d drag us to the Christian courts,’ the little man persisted. ‘I pass.’

The rubber continued cheerlessly. ‘A man who keeps his shop open on Sabbath is capable of anything,’ said the lanky Mendel, gloomily sweeping in his winnings.

The Parnass took snuff judicially. ‘Besides, he may have a Christian partner who keeps all the Saturday profits,’ he suggested.

‘That would be just as forbidden,’ said Barzinsky, as he dealt the cards.

‘But your cousin David,’ his wife reminded him, ‘sells his groceries to a Christian at Passover.’

‘That is permitted. It would not be reasonable to destroy hundreds of pounds of leaven. But Sabbath partnerships are not permitted.’

‘Perhaps the question has never been raised,’ said the Parnass.

‘I am enough of a Lamdan (pundit) to answer it,’ retorted Barzinsky.

‘I prefer going to a specialist,’ rejoined the Parnass.

Barzinsky threw down his cards. ‘You can go to the devil!’ he cried.

‘For shame, Solomon!’ said his wife. ‘Don’t disturb the game.’

‘To Gehenna with the game! The shame is on a Parnass to talk like an Epikouros (Epicurean).’

The Parnass blew his nose elaborately. ‘It stands in the Talmud: “For vain swearing noxious beasts came into the world.” And if—-‘

‘It stands in the Psalmist,’ Barzinsky interrupted: ‘”The Law of Thy mouth is better to me than thousands of gold and silver.”‘

‘It stands in the Perek,’ the Parnass rejoined severely, ‘that the wise man does not break in upon the speech of his fellow.’

‘It stands in the Shulchan Aruch,’ Barzinsky shrieked, ‘that for the sanctification of the Sabbath—-‘

‘It stands in the Talmud,’ interposed Mendel, with unwonted animation in his long figure, ‘that one must not even offer a nut to allure customers. From light to heavy, therefore, it may be deduced that—-‘