Not an easy trade! Besides
that, I have one more line--that's false eyes and teeth. But it ain't a
profitable line. I want to drop it. And besides I'm thinking of leaving
all this business. I understand, it's all right for a young man, in the
bloom of his powers, to flutter around like a moth, but once you have a
wife, and may be a whole family even ..." he playfully patted the woman
on the knee, from which she became scarlet and looked uncommonly
better. "For the Lord has blessed us Jews with fecundity for all our
misfortunes ... Then you want to have some business of your own, you
want, you understand, to become settled in one place, so's there should
be a shack of your own, and your own furniture, and your own bedroom,
and kitchen ... Isn't that so, your excellency?"

"Yes ... Yes ... eh--eh ... Yes, of course, of course," condescendingly
responded the general.

"And so I took with Sarochka a little dowry. What do I mean, a little
dowry? Such money that Rothschild would not even want to look at it are
in my hands a whole capital already. But it must be said that there are
some savings by me, too. The firms I know will give me credit. If God
grant it, we shall still eat a piece of bread and a little butter--and
on the Sabbaths the tasty GEFILTEH FISCH."

"That's fine fish: pike the way the sheenies make it!" said the gasping
land-owner.

"We shall open up for ourselves the firm of 'Horizon and Son.' Isn't
that true, Sarochka--'and Son?' And you, I hope, will honour me with
your esteemed orders? When you see the sign, 'Horizon and Son,' then
straight off recollect that you once rode in a car together with a
young man, who had grown as foolish as hell from love and from
happiness."

"Ab-solutely!" said the land-owner.

And Simon Yakovlevich at once turned to him:

"But I also work by commission broking. To sell an estate, to buy an
estate, to arrange a second mortgage--you won't find a better
specialist than me, and such a cheap one at that. I can be of service
to you, should the need arise," and he extended his visiting card to
the land-owner with a bow, and, by the way, handed a card each to his
two neighbours as well.

The land-owner dived into a side pocket and also dragged out a card.

"Joseph Ivanovich Vengjenovski," Simon Yakovlevich read out loud.
"Very, very pleased! And so, should you need me ..."

"Why not? It's possible ..." said the land-owner meditatively. "Why,
yes: perhaps, indeed, a favoura