pavement and the sky, the remissness of the volcanic fires and the
celestial thunderbolts in face of this staring profanity, lent the
cosmos an air almost of accessory after the fact. Never had the
congregation seen Heaven so openly defied, and the consequences did
not at all correspond with their deep if undefined forebodings. It is
true a horse and carriage dashed into Peleg, the pawnbroker's, window
down the street, frightened, Peleg maintained, by the oilskins
fluttering outside Simeon Samuels' shop; but as the suffering was
entirely limited to the nerves of Mrs. Peleg, who was pious, and to
the innocent nose of the horse, this catastrophe was not quite what
was expected. Solomon Barzinsky made himself the spokesman of the
general dissatisfaction, and his remarks to the minister after the
Sabbath service almost insinuated that the reverend gentleman had
connived at a breach of contract.

The Rev. Elkan Gabriel quoted Scripture. 'The Lord is merciful and
long-suffering, and will not at once awaken all His wrath.'

'But meantime the sinner makes a pretty penny!' quoth Solomon,
unappeased. 'Saturday is pay-day, and the heathen haven't patience to
wait till the three stars are out and our shops can open. It is your
duty, Mr. Gabriel, to put a stop to this profanation.'

The minister hummed and ha'd. He was middle-aged, and shabby, with a
German diploma and accent and a large family. It was the first time in
his five years of office that one of his congregants had suggested
such authoritativeness on his part. Elected by their vote, he was
treated as their servant, his duties rigidly prescribed, his religious
ideas curbed and corrected by theirs. What wonder if he could not
suddenly rise to dictatorship? Even at home Mrs. Gabriel was a
congregation in herself. But as the week went by he found Barzinsky
was not the only man to egg him on to prophetic denunciation; the
congregation at large treated him as responsible for the scandal, and
if the seven marine-dealers were the bitterest, the pawnbrokers and
the linen-drapers were none the less outraged.

'It is a profanation of the Name,' they said unanimously, 'and such a
bad example to our poor!'

'He would not listen to me,' the poor minister would protest. 'You had
much better talk to him yourself.'

'Me!' the button-holer would ejaculate. 'I would not lower myself.
He'd think I was jealous of his success.'

Simeon Samuels seemed, indeed, a formidable person to tac