ROM A MISERABLE
DEATH, AND CONSOLES THE DESPAIRING COMMISSIONSRATH.

Bosswinkel was utterly shaken; more by Manasseh's curse than by
the wild piece of spookery which, as he saw, the Goldsmith had been
carrying on. And indeed it was a terrible curse, for it set the
D[=a]-l[ve]s on to him.

Dear reader, I don't know if you are aware what the D[=a]-l[ve]s of the
Jews is.

One of the Talmudists says that the wife of a certain poor Jew, one day
on coming into her house, found a weazened, emaciated, naked stranger
there, who begged her to give him the shelter of her roof, and food and
drink. Being afraid, she went to her husband, and told him, in tones of
complaint: "A naked, starving man has come in, asking for food and
shelter. How are we to help him, when it is all we can do to keep body
and soul together ourselves?" The husband said: "I will go to this
stranger, and see how I can get him out of the house."

"Why," he said to him, "hast thou come hither, I being so poor and
unable to help thee? Begone! Betake thee to the house of Riches, where
the cattle are fat, and the guests bidden to the feast!"

"How," said the stranger, "canst thou drive me from this shelter which
I have found? Thou seest that I am bare and naked: how can I go to the
house of Riches? Have clothing made for me that shall be fitting, and I
will leave thee." "Better," thought the master of the house, "better
were it for me to spend all I possess in getting rid of him, than that
he should stay, and consume whatever I earn in the time to come, as
well." So he killed his last calf, on which he and his wife had thought
to live for many days; sold the meat, and with the price provided good
clothing for the stranger. But when he took the clothing to him,
behold! the stranger, who had before been lean, and short of stature,
was become tall and stout, so that the clothing was everywhere too
short for him and too narrow. At this the poor Jew was much afraid. But
the stranger said: "Give up the foolish idea of getting me out of thy
house. Know that I am the D[=a]-l[ve]s!" At this the poor Jew wrung his
hands and lamented, crying: "God of my fathers! I am scourged with the
rod of Thine anger, and poverty-smitten for ever and ever! For if thou
art the D[=a]-l[ve]s, thou wilt never leave us, but consume all that we
have, and always grow bigger and stronger. For the D[=a]-l[ve]s is
Poverty; which, when once it takes up its abode in a house, never
departs