d to death,'
whispered the squat Solomon Barzinsky to the lanky Ephraim Mendel,
marine-dealers both.

'Alas! that would not be permitted in this heathen country,' sighed
Ephraim Mendel, hitching his praying-shawl more over his left
shoulder. 'But at least his windows should be stoned.'

Solomon Barzinsky smiled, with a gleeful imagining of the shattering
of the shameless plate-glass. 'Yes, and that wax-dummy of a sailor
should be hung as an atonement for his--Holy, holy, holy is the Lord
of Hosts; the whole earth is full of His glory.' The last phrase
Solomon suddenly shouted in Hebrew, in antiphonal response to the
cantor, and he rose three times on his toes, bowing his head piously.
'No wonder he can offer gold lace for the price of silver,' he
concluded bitterly.

'He sells shoddy new reach-me-downs as pawned old clo,' complained
Lazarus Levy, who had taken over S. Cohn's business, together with his
daughter Deborah, 'and he charges the Sudminster donkey-heads more
than the price we ask for 'em as new.'

Talk of the devil----! At this point Simeon Samuels stalked into the
synagogue, late but serene.

Had the real horned Asmodeus walked in, the agitation could not have
been greater. The first appearance in synagogue of a new settler was
an event in itself; but that this Sabbath-breaker should appear at all
was startling to a primitive community. Escorted by the obsequious and
unruffled beadle to the seat he seemed already to have engaged--that
high-priced seat facing the presidential pew that had remained vacant
since the death of Tevele the pawnbroker--Simeon Samuels wrapped
himself reverently in his praying-shawl, and became absorbed in the
service. His glossy high hat bespoke an immaculate orthodoxy, his long
black beard had a Rabbinic religiousness, his devotion was a rebuke to
his gossiping neighbours.

A wave of uneasiness passed over the synagogue. Had he been the victim
of a jealous libel? Even those whose own eyes had seen him behind his
counter when he should have been consecrating the Sabbath-wine at his
supper-table, wondered if they had been the dupe of some
hallucination.

When, in accordance with hospitable etiquette, the new-comer was
summoned canorously to the reading of the Law--'Shall stand Simeon,
the son of Nehemiah'--and he arose and solemnly mounted the central
platform, his familiarity with the due obeisances and osculations and
benedictions seemed a withering reply to the libel. When