e you twenty-five cents."

"'S enough, Fatkin!" Sternsilver declared. "I heard enough from you
already. You was the one which got me into this _Schlemazel_ and now
you should get me out again."

"What do you mean, getting you into a _Schlemazel_?"

"You know very well what I mean," Philip replied; "and, furthermore,
Fatkin, you are trying to make too free with me. Who are you, anyhow,
you should turn me down when I ask you for a few days twenty-five
dollars? You act so independent, like you would be the foreman."

Hillel nodded slowly, not without dignity.

"Never mind, Sternsilver," he said; "if my family would got a relation,
y'understand, which he is working in Poliakoff's Bank and he is got to
run away on account he is missing in five thousand rubles, which it is
the same name Sternsilver, and everybody in Kovno--the children
even--knows about it, understand me, I wouldn't got to be so stuck up
at all."

Sternsilver flushed indignantly.

"Do you mean to told me," he demanded, "that I got in my family such a
man which he is stealing five thousand rubles, Fatkin?"

"That's what I said," Hillel retorted.

"Well, it only goes to show what a liar you are," Sternsilver rejoined.
"Not only was it he stole ten thousand rubles, y'understand, but the
bank was run by a feller by the name Louis Moser."

"All right," Fatkin said as he started up his sewing-machine by way of
signifying that the interview was at an end. "All right, Sternsilver;
if you got such a relation which he _ganvered_ ten thousand rubles,
y'understand, borrow from him the twenty-five dollars."

Thus Sternsilver was obliged to amend his resolution by substituting
Jersey City for Philadelphia as the seat of his new start in life; and
at half-past eleven that evening, when the good ferryboat _Cincinnati_
drew out of her slip at the foot of Desbrosses Street, a short,
thick-set figure leaned over her bow and gazed sadly, perhaps for the
last time, at the irregular sky-line of Manhattan. It was Sternsilver.

* * * * *

When Mr. Seiden arrived at his factory the following morning he found
his entire force of operators gathered on the stairway and overflowing
on to the sidewalk.

"What is the matter you are striking on me?" he cried.

"Striking!" Hillel Fatkin said. "What do you mean, striking on you, Mr.
Seiden? We ain't striking. Sternsilver ain't come down this morning and
nobody was here he should open