eople than Mrs. Henry
Goldsmith were not averse from having him at their table, though they
would have shrunk from being seen at his. Even cousin Addie, who had a
charming religious cast of mind, liked to be with him, though she
ascribed this to family piety. For there is a wonderful solidarity about
many Jewish families, the richer members of which assemble loyally at
one another's births, marriages, funerals, and card-parties, often to
the entire exclusion of outsiders. An ordinary well-regulated family (so
prolific is the stream of life), will include in its bosom ample
elements for every occasion.

"Really, Mr. Graham, I think you are wrong about the _kosher_ meat,"
said Mr. Henry Goldsmith. "Our statistics show no falling-off in the
number of bullocks killed, while there is a rise of two per cent, in the
sheep slaughtered. No, Judaism is in a far more healthy condition than
pessimists imagine. So far from sacrificing our ancient faith we are
learning to see how tuberculosis lurks in the lungs of unexamined
carcasses and is communicated to the consumer. As for the members of the
_Shechitah_ Board not eating _kosher_, look at me."

The only person who looked at the host was the hostess. Her look was one
of approval. It could not be of aesthetic approval, like the look Percy
Saville devoted to herself, for her husband was a cadaverous little man
with prominent ears and teeth.

"And if Mr. Graham should ever join us on the Council of the United
Synagogue," added Montagu Samuels, addressing the table generally, "he
will discover that there is no communal problem with which we do not
loyally grapple."

"No, thank you," said Sidney, with a shudder. "When I visit Raphael, I
sometimes pick up a Jewish paper and amuse myself by reading the debates
of your public bodies. I understand most of your verbiage is edited
away." He looked Montagu Samuels full in the face with audacious
_naivete_. "But there is enough left to show that our monotonous group
of public men consists of narrow-minded mediocrities. The chief public
work they appear to do outside finance is when public exams, fall on
Sabbaths or holidays, getting special dates for Jewish candidates to
whom these examinations are the avenues to atheism. They never see the
joke. How can they? Why, they take even themselves seriously."

"Oh, come!" said Miss Cissy Levine indignantly. "You often see
'laughter' in the reports."

"That must mean the speaker was laughing,"