es spluttered.
Every one was eating heartily the delicious Festival supper. And I
imagined it was not a Tabernacle but a palace--a great, big, brilliantly
lit-up palace. And we Jews, the chosen people, the princes, were sitting
in the palace and enjoying the pleasures of life. "It is well for you,
little Jews," thought I. "No one is so well-off as you. No one else is
privileged to sit in such a beautiful palace, covered with green
fir-boughs, strewn with yellow sand, decorated with the most beautiful
tapestries in the world, on the tables the finest suppers, and real
Festival fish which is the daintiest of all dainties. And who speaks
of----" Suddenly, crash! The whole roof and the fir-boughs are on our
heads. One wall after the other is falling in. A goat fell from on high,
right on top of us. It suddenly grew pitch dark. All the candles were
extinguished. All the tables were over-turned. And we all, with the
suppers and the crockery and the goat, were stretched out on the sand.
The moon shone, and the stars peeped out, and the goat jumped up,
frightened, and stood on its thin legs, stock-still, while it stared at
us with foolish eyes. It soon marched off, like an insolent creature,
over the tables and chairs, and over our heads, bleating "Meh-eh-eh-eh!"
The candles were extinguished; the crockery smashed; the supper in the
sand; and we were all frightened to death. The women were shrieking, the
children crying. It was a destruction of everything--a real destruction.

* * *

"You built a fine Tabernacle," said Hershke Mamtzes to us in such a
voice, as if we had had from him for building the Tabernacle goodness
knows how much money. "It was a fine Tabernacle, when one goat could
overthrow it."

"It was a Tabernacle for once," replied Moshe-for-once. He stood like
one beaten, looking upwards, to see whence the destruction had come. "It
was a Tabernacle for once."

"Yes, a Tabernacle for once," repeated Hershke Mamtzes, in a voice full
of deadly venom. And every one echoed his words, all in one voice:

"A Tabernacle for once."

The Dead Citron

My name is Leib. When I am called up to read the portion of the Law it
is by the name of Yehudah-Leib. At home, I sign myself Lyef Moishevitch.
Amongst the Germans I am known as Herr Leon. Here in England, I am Mr.
Leon. When I was a child I was called Leibel. At "_Cheder_" I was
Lieb-Dreib-Obderick. You must know that at our "_Cheder_" every boy has
a nickname. Fo