er husband's horror had she seen Simon
banqueting on unrighteousness, and her apoplexy would have been
original, not derivative. For her, indeed, London had proved narrowing
rather than widening. She became part of a parish instead of part of a
town, and of a Ghetto in a parish at that! The vast background of
London was practically a mirage--the London suburb was farther from
London than the provincial town. No longer did the currents of civic
life tingle through her; she sank entirely to family affairs, excluded
even from the ladies' committee. Her lord's life, too, shrank, though
his business extended--the which, uneasily suspected, did but increase
his irritability. He had now the pomp and pose of his late offices
minus any visible reason: a Sir Oracle without a shrine, an abdomen
without authority.

Even the two new sons-in-law whom his ability to clothe them had soon
procured in London, listened impatiently, once they had safely passed
under the Canopy and were ensconced in plush parlours of their own.
Home and shop became his only realm, and his autocratic tendencies
grew the stronger by compression. He read 'the largest circulation,'
and his wife became an echo of its opinions. These opinions, never
nebulous, became sharp as illuminated sky-signs when the Boer War
began.

'The impertinent rascals!' cried S. Cohn furiously. 'They have invaded
our territory.'

'Is it possible?' ejaculated Mrs. Cohn. 'This comes of our kindness to
them after Majuba!'

V

A darkness began to overhang the destinies of Britain. Three defeats
in one week!

'It is humiliating,' said S. Cohn, clenching his fist.

'It makes a miserable Christmas,' said Mrs. Cohn gloomily. Although
her spouse still set his face against the Christmas pudding which had
invaded so many Anglo-Jewish homes, the festival, with its shop-window
flamboyance, entered far more vividly into his consciousness than the
Jewish holidays, which produced no impression on the life of the
streets.

The darkness grew denser. Young men began to enlist for the front: the
City formed a new regiment of Imperial Volunteers. S. Cohn gave his
foreign houses large orders for khaki trouserings. He sent out several
parcels of clothing to the seat of war, and had the same duly
recorded in his favourite Christian newspaper, whence it was copied
into his favourite Jewish weekly, which was, if possible, still more
chauvinist, and had a full-page portrait of Sir Asher Aaronsberg