.

"Can't take less than nine bob. Fish are dear to-day. You won't get
anything cheaper in the Lane, by G---- you won't. Five shillings! By my
life and by my children's life, they cost me more than that. So sure as
I stand here and--well, come, gie's seven and six and they're yours. You
can't afford more? Well, 'old up your apron, old gal. I'll make it up
out of the rich. By your life and mine, you've got a _Metsiah_ (bargain)
there!"

Here old Mrs. Shmendrik, Shosshi's mother, came up, a rich Paisley shawl
over her head in lieu of a bonnet. Lane women who went out without
bonnets were on the same plane as Lane men who went out without collars.

One of the terrors of the English fishmongers was that they required the
customer to speak English, thus fulfilling an important educative
function in the community. They allowed a certain percentage of
jargon-words, for they themselves took licenses in this direction, but
they professed not to understand pure Yiddish.

"Abraham, 'ow mosh for dees lot," said old Mrs. Shmendrik, turning over
a third similar heap and feeling the fish all over.

"Paws off!" said Abraham roughly. "Look here! I know the tricks of you
Polakinties. I'll name you the lowest price and won't stand a farthing's
bating. I'll lose by you, but you ain't, going to worry me. Eight bob!
There!"

"Avroomkely (dear little Abraham) take lebbenpence!"

"Elevenpence! By G----," cried Uncle Abe, desperately tearing his hair.
"I knew it!" And seizing a huge plaice by the tail he whirled it round
and struck Mrs. Shmendrik full in the face, shouting, "Take that, you
old witch! Sling your hook or I'll murder you."

"Thou dog!" shrieked Mrs. Shmendrik, falling back on the more copious
resources of her native idiom. "A black year on thee! Mayest thou swell
and die! May the hand that struck me rot away! Mayest thou be burned
alive! Thy father was a _Gonof_ and thou art a _Gonof_ and thy whole
family are _Gonovim_. May Pharaoh's ten plagues--"

There was little malice at the back of it all--the mere imaginative
exuberance of a race whose early poetry consisted in saying things twice
over.

Uncle Abraham menacingly caught up the plaice, crying:

"May I be struck dead on the spot, if you ain't gone in one second I
won't answer for the consequences. Now, then, clear off!"

"Come, Avroomkely," said Mrs. Shmendrik, dropping suddenly from
invective to insinuativeness. "Take fourteenpence. _Shemah, beni_!
Fourteen _Sh