"I
remember it quite well. Some people explained it favorably. Others were
of opinion that the soul of the fishmonger had transmigrated into the
fish, an opinion borne out by the death of the fishmonger a few days
before. And the Rabbi is still alive to prove it--may his light continue
to shine--though they write that he has lost his memory."

The Shalotten _Shammos_ sceptically passed a pear to his son. Old
Gabriel Hamburg, the scholar, came compassionately to the raconteur's
assistance.

"Rabbi Solomon Maimon," he said, "has left it on record that he
witnessed a similar funeral in Posen."

"It was well she buried it," said Karlkammer. "It was an atonement for a
child, and saved its life."

The Shalotten _Shammos_ laughed outright.

"Ah, laugh not," said Mrs. Belcovitch. "Or you might laugh with blood.
It isn't for my own sins that I was born with ill-matched legs."

"I must laugh when I hear of God's fools burying fish anywhere but in
their stomach," said the Shalotten _Shammos_, transporting a Brazil nut
to the rear, where it was quickly annexed by Solomon Ansell, who had
sneaked in uninvited and ousted the other boy from his coign of vantage.

The conversation was becoming heated; Breckeloff turned the topic.

"My sister has married a man who can't play cards," he said
lugubriously.

"How lucky for her," answered several voices.

"No, it's just her black luck," he rejoined. "For he _will_ play."

There was a burst of laughter and then the company remembered that
Breckeloff was a _Badchan_ or jester.

"Why, your sister's husband is a splendid player," said Sugarman with a
flash of memory, and the company laughed afresh.

"Yes," said Breckeloff. "But he doesn't give me the chance of losing to
him now, he's got such a stuck-up _Kotzon_. He belongs to Duke's Plaizer
_Shool_ and comes there very late, and when you ask him his birthplace
he forgets he was a _Pullack_ and says becomes from 'behind Berlin.'"

These strokes of true satire occasioned more merriment and were worth a
biscuit to Solomon Ansell _vice_ the son of the Shalotten _Shammos_.

Among the inoffensive guests were old Gabriel Hamburg, the scholar, and
young Joseph Strelitski, the student, who sat together. On the left of
the somewhat seedy Strelitski pretty Bessie in blue silk presided over
the coffee-pot. Nobody knew whence Bessie had stolen her good looks:
probably some remote ancestress! Bessie was in every way the most
agreeable membe