el's minor sensations were swallowed up in
a great wonderment.

"We are ruined!" moaned the furniture-dealer, who was always failing.

"You have ruined us!" came the chorus from the thick, sensuous lips, and
swarthy fists were shaken threateningly. Sugarman's hairy paw was almost
against his face. Raphael turned cold, then a rush of red-hot blood
flooded his veins. He put out his good right hand and smote the nearest
fist aside. Sugarman blenched and skipped back and the line of fists
wavered.

"Don't be fools, gentlemen," said De Haan, his keen sense of humor
asserting itself. "Let Mr. Leon sit down."

Raphael, still dazed, took his seat on the editorial chair. "Now, what
can I do for you?" he said courteously. The fists dropped at his calm.

"Do for us," said Schlesinger drily. "You've done for the paper. It's
not worth twopence."

"Well, bring it out at a penny at once then," laughed little Sampson,
reinforced by the arrival of his editor.

Guedalyah the greengrocer glowered at him.

"I am very sorry, gentlemen, I have not been able to satisfy you," said
Raphael. "But in a first number one can't do much."

"Can't they?" said De Haan. "You've done so much damage to orthodoxy
that we don't know whether to go on with the paper."

"You're joking," murmured Raphael.

"I wish I was," laughed De Haan bitterly.

"But you astonish me." persisted Raphael. "Would you be so good as to
point out where I have gone wrong?"

"With pleasure. Or rather with pain," said De Haan. Each of the
committee drew a tattered copy from his pocket, and followed De Haan's
demonstration with a murmured accompaniment of lamentation.

"The paper was founded to inculcate the inspection of cheese, the better
supervision of the sale of meat, the construction of ladies' baths, and
all the principles of true Judaism," said De Haan gloomily, "and there's
not one word about these things, but a great deal about spirituality and
the significance of the ritual. But I will begin at the beginning. Page
1--"

"But that's advertisements," muttered Raphael.

"The part surest to be read! The very first line of the paper is simply
shocking. It reads:

"Death: On the 59th ult., at 22 Buckley St., the Rev. Abraham Barnett,
in his fifty-fourth--"

"But death is always shocking; what's wrong about that?" interposed
little Sampson.

"Wrong!" repeated De Haan, witheringly. "Where did you get that from?
That was never sent in."

"No, of course not