"Why not?"

"Just for that."

"Then I won't let you play."

He didn't hesitate a moment, but scattered the nuts about the floor with
his bear's paws. The boys got angry. The cheek of the rascal!

"Boys, why don't you do something?" asked one.

"What shall we do?" asked a second.

"Lets break his bones for him," suggested a third.

"All right. Try it on," cried Getzel. He turned up his sleeves, ready
for work.

And there took place a battle, a fight between the two parties. On the
one side was the whole "_Cheder_," on the other Getzel.

Ten is not one. It was true they felt what Getzel's fists tasted like.
Bruises and marks around the eyes were the portion of the ten. But for
that, again, they gave him a good taste of the world with their sharp
nails and their teeth, and every other thing they could. From the front
and from the back and from all sides, he got blows and kicks and pulls
and thumps and bites and scratches. Well, ten is not one. They overcame
him. Getzel had to get himself off, disappear. And now begins the real
story of the nuts.

* * *

After he left the "_Cheder_," bruised and scratched and torn and
bleeding, Getzel stood thinking for a while. He clapped his hands on his
pockets, and there was heard the rattling of nuts.

"You don't want to play nuts with me, then may the Angel of Death play
with you. I want you for ten thousand sacrifices. I can manage. We two
will play by ourselves."

That was what Getzel said to himself. The next minute he was off like
the wind. He stopped in the middle of the road to say aloud, as if there
was some one with him:

"Where to? Where, for instance, shall we go, Getzel?" And at once he
answered himself: "There, far outside the town, on the other side of the
mill. There we shall be alone, the two of us. No one will disturb us.
Let any one attempt to disturb us, and we will break bones, and make an
end."

Talking with himself, Getzel felt that he was not alone. He was not one
but two; and he felt as strong as two. Let the boys dare to come near
him, and he would break them to atoms. He would reduce them to a
dust-heap. He enjoyed listening to his own words, and did not stop
talking to himself, as if he really had some one beside him.

"Listen to me. How far are we going to go?" he asked himself. And he
answered himself almost in a strange voice:

"Well, it all depends on you."

"Perhaps we ought to sit down here and play nuts. Well? What do you say,