of hope. 'You _shall_ die in Palestine, I promise you.'

The gleam in Yossel's face became a great flame of joy. 'I shall die
in Palestine?' he asked ecstatically.

'As sure as I live! I will pay your fare the whole way, second-class.'

For a moment the dazzling sunshine continued on Yossel's face, then a
cloud began to pass across it.

'But how can I take your money? I am not a _Schnorrer_.'

Schneemann did not find the question easy to answer. The more so as
Yossel's eagerness to go and die in Palestine seemed to show that
there was no reason for packing him off. However, he told himself that
one must make assurance doubly sure and that, even if it was all empty
gossip, still he had stumbled upon a way of making an old man happy.

'There is no reason why you should take my money,' he said with an
artistic inspiration, 'but there is every reason why I should buy to
myself the _Mitzvah_ (good deed) of sending you to Jerusalem. You
see, I have so few good deeds to my credit.'

'So I have heard,' replied Yossel placidly. 'A very wicked life it is
said you lead at Rome.'

'Most true,' said the artist cheerfully.

'It is said also that you break the Second Commandment by making
representations of things that are on sea and land.'

'I would the critics admitted as much,' murmured the artist.

'Your grandmother does not understand. She thinks you paint
houses--which is not forbidden. But I don't undeceive her--it would
pain her too much.' The lover-like sentiment brought back the artist's
alarm.

'When will you be ready to start?' he said.

Yossel pondered. 'But to die in Palestine one must live in Palestine,'
he said. 'I cannot be certain that God would take my soul the moment I
set foot on the holy soil.'

The artist reflected a moment, but scarcely felt rich enough to
guarantee that Yossel should live in Palestine, especially if he were
an unconscionably long time a-dying. A happy thought came to him. 'But
there is the _Chalukah_,' he reminded Yossel.

'But that is charity.'

'No--it is not charity, it is a sort of university endowment. It is
just to support such old students as you that these sums are sent from
all the world over. The prayers and studies of our old men in
Jerusalem are a redemption to all Israel. And yours would be to me in
particular.'

'True, true,' said Yossel eagerly; 'and life is very cheap there, I
have always heard.'

'Then it is a bargain,' slipped unwarily from the artist's