in a low tone.
"They can't understand each other."

"You ought to keep an interpreter on the premises," said the doctor,
blowing his nose. Coleman struggled with himself. He knew the jargon to
perfection, for his parents spoke it still, but he had always posed as
being ignorant of it.

"Tell my father to go home, and not to bother; I'm all right--only a
little weak," whispered Benjamin.

Coleman was deeply perturbed. He was wondering whether he should plead
guilty to a little knowledge, when a change of expression came over the
wan face on the pillow. The doctor came and felt the boy's pulse.

"No, I don't want to hear that _Maaseh_," cried Benjamin. "Tell me about
the Sambatyon, father, which refuses to flow on _Shabbos_."

He spoke Yiddish, grown a child again. Moses's face lit up with joy. His
eldest born had returned to intelligibility. There was hope still then.
A sudden burst of sunshine flooded the room. In London the sun would not
break through the clouds for some hours. Moses leaned over the pillow,
his face working with blended emotions. Me let a hot tear fall on his
boy's upturned face.

"Hush, hush, my little Benjamin, don't cry," said Benjamin, and began to
sing in his mothers jargon:

"Sleep, little father, sleep,
Thy father shall be a Rav,
Thy mother shall bring little apples,
Blessings on thy little head,"

Moses saw his dead Gittel lulling his boy to sleep. Blinded by his
tears, he did not see that they were falling thick upon the little white
face.

"Nay, dry thy tears, I tell thee, my little Benjamin," said Benjamin, in
tones more tender and soothing, and launched into the strange wailing
melody:

"Alas, woe is me!
How wretched to be
Driven away and banished,
Yet so young, from thee."

"And Joseph's mother called to him from the grave: Be comforted, my son,
a great future shall be thine."

"The end is near," old Four-Eyes whispered to the father in jargon.
Moses trembled from head to foot. "My poor lamb! My poor Benjamin," he
wailed. "I thought thou wouldst say _Kaddish_ after me, not I for thee."
Then he began to recite quietly the Hebrew prayers. The hat he should
have removed was appropriate enough now.

Benjamin sat up excitedly in bed: "There's mother, Esther!" he cried in
English. "Coming back with my coat. But what's the use of it now?"

His head fell back again. Presently a look of yearning came over the
face so full of boyish beauty. "Esth