Name must not be made common. Moreover one might lose
one's life."

"Could the Masters make men?" inquired Esther, who had recently come
across Frankenstein.

"Certainly," said Moses. "And what is more, it stands written that Reb
Chanina and Reb Osheya fashioned a fine fat calf on Friday and enjoyed
it on the Sabbath."

"Oh, father!" said Solomon, piteously, "don't you know Cabalah?"

CHAPTER IX.

DUTCH DEBBY.

A year before we got to know Esther Ansell she got to know Dutch Debby
and it changed her life. Dutch Debby was a tall sallow ungainly girl who
lived in the wee back room on the second floor behind Mrs. Simons and
supported herself and her dog by needle-work. Nobody ever came to see
her, for it was whispered that her parents had cast her out when she
presented them with an illegitimate grandchild. The baby was fortunate
enough to die, but she still continued to incur suspicion by keeping a
dog, which is an un-Jewish trait. Bobby often squatted on the stairs
guarding her door and, as it was very dark on the staircase, Esther
suffered great agonies lest she should tread on his tail and provoke
reprisals. Her anxiety led her to do so one afternoon and Bobby's teeth
just penetrated through her stocking. The clamor brought out Dutch
Debby, who took the girl into her room and soothed her. Esther had often
wondered what uncanny mysteries lay behind that dark dog-guarded door
and she was rather more afraid of Debby than of Bobby.

But that afternoon saw the beginning of a friendship which added one to
the many factors which were moulding the future woman. For Debby turned
out a very mild bogie, indeed, with a good English vocabulary and a
stock of old _London Journals_, more precious to Esther than mines of
Ind. Debby kept them under the bed, which, as the size of the bed all
but coincided with the area of the room, was a wise arrangement. And on
the long summer evenings and the Sunday afternoons when her little ones
needed no looking after and were traipsing about playing "whoop!" and
pussy-cat in the street downstairs, Esther slipped into the wee back
room, where the treasures lay, and there, by the open window,
overlooking the dingy back yard and the slanting perspectives of
sun-decked red tiles where cats prowled and dingy sparrows hopped, in an
atmosphere laden with whiffs from a neighboring dairyman's stables,
Esther lost herself in wild tales of passion and romance. She frequently
read them aloud