crutches; Long
Mekabbel, with a red plaster on his neck, stood beside him.

These two leaders of the revolt were addressing the people, the meek of
the earth.

"Ha, ha!" exclaimed Long Mekabbel, as he caught sight of us and the
messenger, "they have come to beg our acceptance!"

"To beg our acceptance!" shouted the Crooked One, and banged his crutch.

"Why won't you come to the wedding, to the dinner?" we inquired.
"Everyone will be given alms."

"How much?" they asked all together.

"We don't know, but you will take what they offer."

"Will they give it us in kerblech? Because, if not, we don't go."

"There will be a hole in the sky if you don't go," cried some of the
urchins present.

The almsgatherers threw themselves on the urchins with their sticks, and
there was a bit of a row.

Mekabbel the Long, standing on the cart, drew himself to his full
height, and began to shout:

"Hush, hush, hush! Quiet, you crazy cripples! One can't hear oneself
speak! Let us hear what those have to say who are worth listening to!"
and he turned to us with the words:

"You must know, dear Jews, that unless they distribute kerblech among
us, we shall not budge. Never you fear! Reb Yitzchok-Aizik won't marry
his youngest daughter without us, and where is he to get others of us
now? To send to Lunetz would cost him more in conveyances, and he would
have to put off the marriage."

"What do they suppose? That because we are poor people they can do what
they please with us?" and a new striker hitched himself up by the
wheel, blind of one eye, with a tied-up jaw. "No one can oblige us to
go, even the chief of police and the governor cannot force us--either
it's kerblech, or we stay where we are."

"K-ke-kkerb-kkerb-lech!!" came from Feitel the Stammerer.

"Nienblech!" put in Yainkel Fonfatch, speaking through his small nose.
"No, more!" called out a couple of merry paupers.

"Kerblech, kerblech!" shouted the rest in concert.

And through their shouting and their speeches sounded such a note of
anger and of triumph, it seemed as though they were pouring out all the
bitterness of soul collected in the course of their sad and luckless
lives.

They had always kept silence, had _had_ to keep silence, _had_ to
swallow the insults offered them along with the farthings, and the dry
bread, and the scraped bones, and this was the first time they had been
able to retaliate, the first time they had known how it felt to be
entreated