ideon, the M.P., may be said to desire a Rod of Moses, for his
secretary told me he will take forty," said Shmendrik.

"Hush! what are you saying!" said Sugarman, "Gideon is a rich man, and
then he is a director."

"It seems a good lot of directors," said Meckisch.

"Good to look at. But who can tell?" said Sugarman, shaking his head.
"The Queen of Sheba probably brought sapphires to Solomon, but she was
not a virtuous woman."

"Ah, Solomon!" sighed Mrs. Shmendrik, pricking up her ears and
interrupting this talk of stocks and stones, "If he'd had a thousand
daughters instead of a thousand wives, even his treasury couldn't have
held out. I had only two girls, praised be He, and yet it nearly ruined
me to buy them husbands. A dirty _Greener_ comes over, without a shirt
to his skin, and nothing else but he must have two hundred pounds in the
hand. And then you've got to stick to his back to see that he doesn't
take his breeches in his hand and off to America. In Poland he would
have been glad to get a maiden, and would have said thank you."

"Well, but what about your own son?" said Sugarman; "Why haven't you
asked me to find Shosshi a wife? It's a sin against the maidens of
Israel. He must be long past the Talmudical age."

"He is twenty-four," replied Peleg Shmendrik.

"Tu, tu, tu, tu, tu!" said Sugarman, clacking his tongue in horror,
"have you perhaps an objection to his marrying?"

"Save us and grant us peace!" said the father in deprecatory horror.
"Only Shosshi is so shy. You are aware, too, he is not handsome. Heaven
alone knows whom he takes after."

"Peleg, I blush for you," said Mrs. Shmendrik. "What is the matter with
the boy? Is he deaf, dumb, blind, unprovided with legs? If Shosshi is
backward with the women, it is because he 'learns' so hard when he's not
at work. He earns a good living by his cabinet-making and it is quite
time he set up a Jewish household for himself. How much will you want
for finding him a _Calloh_?"

"Hush!" said Sugarman sternly, "do you forget it is the Sabbath? Be
assured I shall not charge more than last time, unless the bride has an
extra good dowry."

On Saturday night immediately after _Havdalah_, Sugarman went to Mr.
Belcovitch, who was just about to resume work, and informed him he had
the very _Chosan_ for Becky. "I know," he said, "Becky has a lot of
young men after her, but what are they but a pack of bare-backs? How
much will you give for a solid man?"

After