e meek and timorous outside
the Ghetto, walking warily for fear of the Christian. Sufferance was
still the badge of all their tribe. Yet that there were Jews who held
their heads high, let the following legend tell: Few men could shuffle
along more inoffensively or cry "Old Clo'" with a meeker twitter than
Sleepy Sol. The old man crawled one day, bowed with humility and
clo'-bag, into a military mews and uttered his tremulous chirp. To him
came one of the hostlers with insolent beetling brow.

"Any gold lace?" faltered Sleepy Sol.

"Get out!" roared the hostler.

"I'll give you de best prices," pleaded Sleepy Sol.

"Get out!" repeated the hostler and hustled the old man into the street.
"If I catch you 'ere again, I'll break your neck." Sleepy Sol loved his
neck, but the profit on gold lace torn from old uniforms was high. Next
week he crept into the mews again, trusting to meet another hostler.

"Clo'! Clo'!" he chirped faintly.

Alas! the brawny bully was to the fore again and recognized him.

"You dirty old Jew," he cried. "Take that, and that! The next time I
sees you, you'll go 'ome on a shutter."

The old man took that, and that, and went on his way. The next day he
came again.

"Clo'! Clo'!" he whimpered.

"What!" said the ruffian, his coarse cheeks flooded with angry blood.
"Ev yer forgotten what I promised yer?" He seized Sleepy Sol by the
scruff of the neck.

"I say, why can't you leave the old man alone?"

The hostler stared at the protester, whose presence he had not noticed
in the pleasurable excitement of the moment. It was a Jewish young man,
indifferently attired in a pepper-and-salt suit. The muscular hostler
measured him scornfully with his eye.

"What's to do with you?" he said, with studied contempt.

"Nothing," admitted the intruder. "And what harm is he doing you?"

"That's my bizness," answered the hostler, and tightened his clutch of
Sleepy Sol's nape.

"Well, you'd better not mind it," answered the young man calmly. "Let
go."'

The hostler's thick lips emitted a disdainful laugh.

"Let go, d'you hear?" repeated the young man.

"I'll let go at your nose," said the hostler, clenching his knobby fist.

"Very well," said the young man. "Then I'll pull yours."

"Oho!" said the hostler, his scowl growing fiercer. "Yer means bizness,
does yer?" With that he sent Sleepy Sol staggering along the road and
rolled up his shirt-sleeves. His coat was already off.

The young man did