hat I ate
nothing but Beigel--Beigel for breakfast, Beigel for dinner, Beigel for
supper, Beigel all day long. They also observed that I ate it to the
accompaniment of strange gestures and contortions of both my mouth and
my hands.

One day I summoned all my courage, and asked the Rebbe, in the middle of
a lesson on the Pentateuch:

"Rebbe, when one has eaten a Beigel, what becomes of the hole?"

"Why, you little silly," answered the Rebbe, "what is a hole in a
Beigel? Just nothing at all! A bit of emptiness! It's nothing _with_ the
Beigel and nothing _without_ the Beigel!"

Many years have passed since then, and I have not yet been able to
satisfy myself as to what is the object of a hole in a Beigel. I have
considered whether one could not have Beigels without holes. One lives
and learns. And America has taught me this: One _can_ have Beigels
without holes, for I saw them in a dairy-shop in East Broadway. I at
once recited the appropriate blessing, and then I asked the shopman
about these Beigels, and heard a most interesting history, which shows
how difficult it is to get people to accept anything new, and what
sacrifices it costs to introduce the smallest reform.

This is the story:

A baker in an Illinois city took it into his head to make straight
Beigels, in the shape of candles. But this reform cost him dear, because
the united owners of the bakeries in that city immediately made a set at
him and boycotted him.

They argued: "Our fathers' fathers baked Beigels with holes, the whole
world eats Beigels with holes, and here comes a bold coxcomb of a
fellow, upsets the order of the universe, and bakes Beigels _without_
holes! Have you ever heard of such impertinence? It's just revolution!
And if a person like this is allowed to go on, he will make an end of
everything: to-day it's Beigels without holes, to-morrow it will be
holes without Beigels! Such a thing has never been known before!"

And because of the hole in a Beigel, a storm broke out in that city that
grew presently into a civil war. The "bosses" fought on, and dragged the
bakers'-hands Union after them into the conflict. Now the Union
contained two parties, of which one declared that a hole and a Beigel
constituted together a private affair, like religion, and that everyone
had a right to bake Beigels as he thought best, and according to his
conscience. The other party maintained, that to sell Beigels without
holes was against the constitution,