re were you the whole day?" said he.

"Where could I be?" said I.

"How do I know?" said he. "You tell me. You know better than I."

"At the House of Learning," said I.

"What were you doing at the House of Learning?" said he.

"What should I be doing at the House of Learning?" said I.

"Do I know what you could be doing there?" said he.

"I was learning," said I.

"What were you learning?" said he.

"What should I learn?" said I.

"Do I know what you should learn?" said he.

"I was learning '_Gemarra_' were you learning?" said he.

"What '_Gemarra_' should I learn?" said I.

"Do I know what '_Gemarra_' you should learn?" said he.

"I learnt the '_Gemarra_', '_Shabos_'," said I.

At this Ephraim Log-of-wood burst out laughing in his rattling little
laugh. And it seemed that my father could bear no more. He jumped up
from his seat and delivered me two resounding fiery boxes on the ears.
Stars flew before my eyes. My mother heard my shouts from the other
room. She flew into us with a scream.

"Nahum! The Lord be with you! What are you doing? A young man--a
bridegroom-elect! Just before his wedding! Bethink yourself! If her
father gets to know of this--God forbid!"

* * *

My mother was right. The girl's father got to know the whole story.
Ephraim Log-of-wood went off himself and told it to him. And in this way
Ephraim had his revenge of Hershel the Tax-collector; for the two had
always been at the point of sticking knives into one another.

* * *

Next day I got back the marriage-contract and the presents which had
been given to the bride-elect. And I was no longer a bridegroom-elect.

This grieved my father so deeply that he fell into a very serious
illness. He was bedridden for a long time. He would not let me come near
him. He refused to look into my face. All my mother's tears and
arguments and explanations and her defence of me were of no use at all.

"The disgrace," said my father, "the disgrace of it is worse than
anything else."

"May it turn out to be a real, true sacrifice for us all," said my
mother to him. "The Lord will have to send us another bride-elect. What
can we do? Shall we take our own lives? Perhaps it is not his destiny to
marry this girl."

Amongst those who came to visit my father in his illness was Tchitchick
the bandmaster.

When my father saw him, he took off his little round cap, sat up in his
bed, stretched out his hand to him, looked straight into his eyes and