tood. His garments were white, and where they were not they had been
neatly chalked. On the border of his skirt and sleeves were the regulation
fringes, and on his forehead and about his left arm the phylacteries which
Pharisees affect. He was not pleasant to the eye, but he was virtuous and
a strict observer of the Law.

In the room at his left were mats and painted stools, set in the manner
customary when guests are awaited. For on that day Simon Barlevi was to
give a little feast, to which he had bidden his friends and also a rabbi
whom he had listened to in the synagogue, and with whose ideas he did not
at all agree. Save for the mats and stools, and a lamp of red clay, the
room was bare.

In front of the house was a bit of ground enclosed by a hedge of stones;
and now as Simon stood in the recess a guest appeared.

"Reulah!" he exclaimed, "the Lord be with you."

And Reulah answering, as etiquette required, "Unto you be peace, and to
your house be peace, and unto all you have be peace," the two friends
clasped hands raised them as though to kiss them, then each withdrawing
kissed his own hand, and struck it on his forehead.

Singularly enough, host and guest looked much alike. Simon had the
appearance of one conscious of and strong in his own rectitude, while
Reulah seemed humbler and more effaced. Otherwise there was not a pin to
choose between them.

To Simon's face had come an expression of perplexity in which there was
zeal.

"I was thinking, Reulah," he announced, "of the rabbi who is to break
bread with us to-day. His teaching does not comfort me."

Reulah was unlatching his shoes. "Nor me," he interjected.

"On questions of purity and impurity he seems unscrupulously negligent. I
have heard that he is a glutton and a wine-bibber. I have heard that he
despises the washing of the hands."

"Whoso does," Reulah threw back, "will be rooted out of the world."

Simon nodded; a smile of protracted amiability hovered in the corners of
his mouth. For a moment he played with his beard.

"I think," he added, "that he will find here food in plenty, and counsel
as well."

Reulah closed his eyes benignly, and Simon, in a falsetto which he
affected when he desired to impress, continued in gentle menace:

"But I have certain questions to put to him. Whether water from an unclean
vessel defiles that which is clean. Whether the flesh of a dead body alone
defiles, or the skin and bones as well. I want to see how