Ghetto Comedies Part 14

'I am enough of a _Lamdan_ (pundit) to answer it,' retorted Barzinsky.

'I prefer going to a specialist,' rejoined the _Parna.s.s_.

Barzinsky threw down his cards. 'You can go to the devil!' he cried.

'For shame, Solomon!' said his wife. 'Don't disturb the game.'

'To Gehenna with the game! The shame is on a _Parna.s.s_ to talk like an _Epikouros_ (Epicurean).'

The _Parna.s.s_ blew his nose elaborately. 'It stands in the Talmud: "For vain swearing noxious beasts came into the world." And if----'

'It stands in the Psalmist,' Barzinsky interrupted: '"The Law of Thy mouth is better to me than thousands of gold and silver."'

'It stands in the Perek,' the _Parna.s.s_ rejoined severely, 'that the wise man does not break in upon the speech of his fellow.'

'It stands in the Shulchan Aruch,' Barzinsky shrieked, 'that for the sanctification of the Sabbath----'

'It stands in the Talmud,' interposed Mendel, with unwonted animation in his long figure, 'that one must not even offer a nut to allure customers. From light to heavy, therefore, it may be deduced that----'

A still small voice broke in upon the storm. 'But Simeon Samuels hasn't a Christian partner,' said Mrs. Mendel.

There was an embarra.s.sed pause.

'He has only his wife to help him,' she went on. 'I know, because I went to the shop Friday morning on pretence of asking for a cuckoo-clock.'

'But a marine-dealer doesn't sell clocks,' put in the _Parna.s.s's_ wife timidly. It was her first contribution to the conversation, for she was overpowered by her husband's greatness.

'Don't be silly, Hannah!' said the _Parna.s.s_. 'That was just why Mrs.

Mendel asked for it.'

'Yes, but unfortunately Simeon Samuels did have one,' Mrs. Mendel confessed; 'and I couldn't get out of buying it.'

There was a general laugh.

'Cut-throat compet.i.tion, I call it,' snarled Solomon Barzinsky, recovering from his merriment.

'But _you_ don't sell clocks,' said the _Parna.s.s_.

'That's just it; he gets hold of our customers on pretence of selling them something else. The Talmudical prohibition cited by Mendel applies to that too.'

'So I wasn't so silly,' put in the _Parna.s.s's_ wife, feeling vaguely vindicated.

'Well, you saw his wife,' said the _Parna.s.s_ to Mendel's wife, disregarding his own. 'More than I've done, for she wasn't in synagogue. Perhaps _she_ is the Christian partner.' His suggestion brought a new and holier horror over the card-table.

'No, no,' replied Mrs. Mendel rea.s.suringly. 'I caught sight of her frying fish in the kitchen.'

This proof of her Jewishness pa.s.sed unquestioned, and the new-born horror subsided.

'But in spite of the fish,' said Mr. Mendel, 'she served in the shop while he was at synagogue.'

'Yes,' hissed Barzinsky; 'and in spite of the synagogue _he_ served in the shop. A greater mockery was never known!'

'Not at all, not at all,' said the _Parna.s.s_ judicially. 'If a man breaks one commandment, that's no reason he should break two.'

'But he does break two,' Solomon thundered, smiting the green cloth with his fist; 'for he steals my custom by opening when I'm closed.'

'Take care--you will break my plates,' said the _Parna.s.s_. 'Take a sandwich.'

'Thank you--you've taken away my appet.i.te.'

'I'm sorry--but the sandwiches would have done the same. I really can't expel a respectable seat-holder before I know that he is truly a sinner in Israel. As it is written, "Thou shalt inquire and make search and ask diligently." He may have only opened this once by way of a send-off. Every dog is allowed one bite.'

'At that rate, it would be permitted to eat a ham-sandwich--just for once,' said Solomon scathingly.

'Don't say _I_ called you a dog,' the _Parna.s.s_ laughed.

'A mezaire!' announced the hostess hurriedly. 'After all, it's the Almighty's business, not ours.'

'No, it's our business,' Solomon insisted.

'Yes,' agreed the _Parna.s.s_ drily; 'it _is_ your business.'

III

The week went by, with no lull in the storm, though the plate-gla.s.s window was unshaken by the gusts. It maintained its flaunting seductiveness, a.s.sisted, people observed, by Simeon Samuels' habit of lounging at his shop-door and sucking in the hesitating spectator. And it did not shutter itself on the Sabbath that succeeded.

The horror was tinged with consternation. The strange apathy of the pavement and the sky, the remissness of the volcanic fires and the celestial thunderbolts in face of this staring profanity, lent the cosmos an air almost of accessory after the fact. Never had the congregation seen Heaven so openly defied, and the consequences did not at all correspond with their deep if undefined forebodings. It is true a horse and carriage dashed into Peleg, the p.a.w.nbroker's, window down the street, frightened, Peleg maintained, by the oilskins fluttering outside Simeon Samuels' shop; but as the suffering was entirely limited to the nerves of Mrs. Peleg, who was pious, and to the innocent nose of the horse, this catastrophe was not quite what was expected. Solomon Barzinsky made himself the spokesman of the general dissatisfaction, and his remarks to the minister after the Sabbath service almost insinuated that the reverend gentleman had connived at a breach of contract.

The Rev. Elkan Gabriel quoted Scripture. 'The Lord is merciful and long-suffering, and will not at once awaken all His wrath.'

'But meantime the sinner makes a pretty penny!' quoth Solomon, unappeased. 'Sat.u.r.day is pay-day, and the heathen haven't patience to wait till the three stars are out and our shops can open. It is your duty, Mr. Gabriel, to put a stop to this profanation.'

The minister hummed and ha'd. He was middle-aged, and shabby, with a German diploma and accent and a large family. It was the first time in his five years of office that one of his congregants had suggested such authoritativeness on his part. Elected by their vote, he was treated as their servant, his duties rigidly prescribed, his religious ideas curbed and corrected by theirs. What wonder if he could not suddenly rise to dictatorship? Even at home Mrs. Gabriel was a congregation in herself. But as the week went by he found Barzinsky was not the only man to egg him on to prophetic denunciation; the congregation at large treated him as responsible for the scandal, and if the seven marine-dealers were the bitterest, the p.a.w.nbrokers and the linen-drapers were none the less outraged.

'It is a profanation of the Name,' they said unanimously, 'and such a bad example to our poor!'

'He would not listen to me,' the poor minister would protest. 'You had much better talk to him yourself.'

'Me!' the b.u.t.ton-holer would e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.e. 'I would not lower myself.

He'd think I was jealous of his success.'

Simeon Samuels seemed, indeed, a formidable person to tackle. Bland and aloof, he pursued his own affairs, meeting the congregation only in synagogue, and then more bland and aloof than ever.

At last the Minister received a presidential command to preach upon the subject forthwith.

'But there's no text suitable just yet,' he pleaded. 'We are still in Genesis.'