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The Rev. Elkan Gabriel expanded under this warmth which radiated back to him. His stature grew, his eloquence poured forth, polysyllabic. As he ended, the congregation burst into a heartfelt ‘Yosher Koach‘ (‘May thy strength increase!’).

The minister descended the Ark-steps, and stalked back solemnly to his seat. As he passed Simeon Samuels, that gentleman whipped out his hand and grasped the man of God’s, and his neighbours testified that there was a look of contrite exaltation upon his goodly features.

V

The Sabbath came round again, but, alas! it brought no balm to the congregation; rather, was it a day of unrest. The plate-glass window still flashed in iniquitous effrontery; still the ungodly proprietor allured the stream of custom.

‘He does not even refuse to take money,’ Solomon Barzinsky exclaimed to Peleg the pawnbroker, as they passed the blasphemous window on their way from the Friday-evening service.

‘Why, what would be the good of keeping open if you didn’t take money?’ naively inquired Peleg.

‘Behemah (animal)!’ replied Solomon impatiently. ‘Don’t you know it’s forbidden to touch money on the Sabbath?’

‘Of course, I know that. But if you open your shop—-!’

‘All the same, you might compromise. You might give the customers the things they need, as it is written, “Open thy hand to the needy!” but they could pay on Saturday night.’

‘And if they didn’t pay? If they drank their money away?’ said the pawnbroker.

‘True, but why couldn’t they pay in advance?’

‘How in advance?’

‘They could deposit a sum of money with you, and draw against it.’

‘Not with me!’ Peleg made a grimace. ‘All very well for your line, but in mine I should have to deposit a sum of money with them. I don’t suppose they’d bring their pledges on Friday night, and wait till Saturday night for the money. Besides, how could one remember? One would have to profane the Sabbath by writing!’

‘Write! Heaven forbid!’ ejaculated Solomon Barzinsky. ‘But you could have a system of marking the amounts against their names in your register. A pin could be stuck in to represent a pound, or a stamp stuck on to indicate a crown. There are lots of ways. One could always give one’s self a device,’ he concluded in Yiddish.

‘But it is written in Job, “He disappointeth the devices of the crafty, so that their hands cannot perform their enterprise.” Have a little of Job’s patience, and trust the Lord to confound the sinner. We shall yet see Simeon Samuels in the Bankruptcy Court.’

‘I hope not, the rogue! I’d like to see him ruined!’

‘That’s what I mean. Leave him to the Lord.’

‘The Lord is too long-suffering,’ said Solomon. ‘Ah, our Parnass has caught us up. Good Shabbos (Sabbath), Parnass. This is a fine scandal for a God-fearing congregation. I congratulate you.’

‘Is he open again?’ gasped the Parnass, hurled from his judicial calm.

‘Is my eye open?’ witheringly retorted Barzinsky. ‘A fat lot of good your preacher does.’

‘It was you who would elect him instead of Rochinsky,’ the Parnass reminded him. Barzinsky was taken aback.

‘Well, we don’t want foreigners, do we?’ he murmured.

‘And you caught an Englishman in Simeon Samuels,’ chuckled the Parnass, in whose breast the defeat of his candidate had never ceased to rankle.

‘Not he. An Englishman plays fair,’ retorted Barzinsky. He seriously considered himself a Briton, regarding his naturalization papers as retrospective. ‘We are just passing the Reverend Gabriel’s house,’ he went on. ‘Let us wait a moment; he’ll come along, and we’ll give him a piece of our minds.’

‘I can’t keep my family waiting for Kiddush’ (home service), said Peleg.

‘Come home, father; I’m hungry,’ put in Peleg junior, who with various Barzinsky boys had been trailing in the parental wake.

‘Silence, impudent face!’ snapped Barzinsky. ‘If I was your father—-Ah, here comes the minister. Good Shabbos (Sabbath), Mr. Gabriel. I congratulate you on the effect of your last sermon.’

An exultant light leapt into the minister’s eye. ‘Is he shut?’

‘Is your mouth shut?’ Solomon replied scathingly. ‘I doubt if he’ll even come to Shool (synagogue) to-morrow.’