croaked a wizened old woman.

"Oppea! Oppea!" droned a doddering old Dutchman. He bore a great can of
hot peas in one hand and a lighthouse-looking pepper-pot in the other.
Some of the children swallowed the dainties hastily out of miniature
basins, others carried them within in paper packets for surreptitious
munching.

"Call that a ay-puth?" a small boy would say.

"Not enough!" the old man would exclaim in surprise. "Here you are,
then!" And he would give the peas another sprinkling from the
pepper-pot.

Moses Ansell's progeny were not in the picture. The younger children
were at home, the elder had gone to school an hour before to run about
and get warm in the spacious playgrounds. A slice of bread each and the
wish-wash of a thrice-brewed pennyworth of tea had been their morning
meal, and there was no prospect of dinner. The thought of them made
Moses's heart heavy again; he forgot the _Maggid's_ explanation of the
verse in Habakkuk, and he retraced his steps towards Mordecai Schwartz's
shop. But like his humbler rival, Mordecai had no use for the many-sided
Moses; he was "full up" with swarthy "hands," though, as there were
rumors of strikes in the air, he prudently took note of Moses's address.
After this rebuff, Moses shuffled hopelessly about for more than an
hour; the dinner-hour was getting desperately near; already children
passed him, carrying the Sunday dinners from the bakeries, and there
were wafts of vague poetry in the atmosphere. Moses felt he could not
face his own children.

At last he nerved himself to an audacious resolution, and elbowed his
way blusterously towards the Ruins, lest he might break down if his
courage had time to cool.

"The Ruins" was a great stony square, partly bordered by houses, and
only picturesque on Sundays when it became a branch of the all-ramifying
Fair. Moses could have bought anything there from elastic braces to
green parrots in gilt cages. That is to say if he had had money. At
present he had nothing in his pocket except holes.

What he might be able to do on his way back was another matter; for it
was Malka that Moses Ansell was going to see. She was the cousin of his
deceased wife, and lived in Zachariah Square. Moses had not been there
for a month, for Malka was a wealthy twig of the family tree, to be
approached with awe and trembling. She kept a second-hand clothes store
in Houndsditch, a supplementary stall in the Halfpenny Exchange, and a
barrow on th