enance, agitated by grimaces and sniffs,
as he critically perused the paragraphs whose Hebrew letters served as
the channel for the mongrel Yiddish and American dialect, in which
'congressman,' 'sweater,' and such-like crudities of to-day had all
the outer Oriental robing of the Old Testament. Suddenly a strange
gurgle spluttered through the cigarette smoke. He read the
announcement again.

The Yiddish 'Hamlet' was to be the Passover production at Goldwater's
Theatre. The author was the world-renowned poet Melchitsedek Pinchas,
and the music was by Ignatz Levitsky, the world-famous composer.

'World-famous composer, indeed!' cried Pinchas to his garret walls.
'Who ever heard of Ignatz Levitsky? And who wants his music? The
tragedy of a thinker needs no caterwauling of violins. Does Goldwater
imagine I have written a melodrama? At most will I permit an
overture--or the cymbals shall clash as I take my call.'

He leaped out of bed. Even greater than his irritation at this
intrusion of Levitsky was his joyful indignation at the imminence of
his play. The dogs! The liars! The first night was almost at hand, and
no sign had been vouchsafed to him. He had been true to his promise;
he had kept away from the theatre. But Goldwater! But Kloot! Ah, the
godless gambler with his parents' lives! With such ghouls hovering
around the Hebrew 'Hamlet,' who could say how the masterpiece had been
mangled? Line upon line had probably been cut; nay, who knew that a
whole scene had not been shorn away, perhaps to give more time for
that miserable music!

He flung himself into his clothes and, taking his cane, hurried off to
the theatre, breathless and breakfastless. Orchestral music vibrated
through the lobby and almost killed his pleasure in the placards of
the Yiddish 'Hamlet.' He gave but a moment to absorbing the great
capital letters of his name; a dash at a swinging-door, and he faced a
glowing, crowded stage at the end of a gloomy hall. Goldwater,
limelit, occupied the centre of the boards. Hamlet trod the
battlements of the tower of David, and gazed on the cupolas and
minarets of Jerusalem.

With a raucous cry, half anger, half ecstasy, Pinchas galloped toward
the fiddling and banging orchestra. A harmless sweeper in his path
was herself swept aside. But her fallen broom tripped up the runner.
He fell with an echoing clamour, to which his clattering cane
contributed, and clouds of dust arose and gathered where erst had
stood a