for a little while. He took out his
snuff, and had a pinch, then he took out of the bosom of his robe a
great red handkerchief, wiped his nose, and reflected a minute or two.
Then he said quietly:

"If a match were broken off through me, I should be sorry. You certainly
behaved as you should not have, in taking the money without leave, but
it is written: Judge not thy neighbor till thou hast stood in his place.
You shall keep the hundred rubles. Come to-night and bring me an I. O.
U., and begin to repay me little by little."

"What are you, an angel?" exclaimed Berel, weeping.

"God forbid," replied Moisheh Chalfon, quietly, "I am what you are. You
are a Jew, and I also am a Jew."

ISAIAH LERNER

Born, 1861, in Zwoniec, Podolia, Southwestern Russia; co-editor of
die Bibliothek Dos Leben, published at Odessa, 1904, and Kishineff,
1905.

BERTZI WASSERFUeHRER

I

The first night of Passover. It is already about ten o'clock. Outside it
is dark, wet, cold as the grave. A fine, close, sleety rain is driving
down, a light, sharp, fitful wind blows, whistles, sighs, and whines,
and wanders round on every side, like a returned and sinful soul seeking
means to qualify for eternal bliss. The mud is very thick, and reaches
nearly to the waist.

At one end of the town of Kamenivke, in the Poor People's Street, which
runs along by the bath-house, it is darkest of all, and muddiest. The
houses there are small, low, and overhanging, tumbled together in such a
way that there is no seeing where the mud begins and the dwelling ends.
No gleam of light, even in the windows. Either the inhabitants of the
street are all asleep, resting their tired bones and aching limbs, or
else they all lie suffocated in the sea of mud, simply because the mud
is higher than the windows. Whatever the reason, the street is quiet as
a God's-acre, and the darkness may be felt with the hands.

Suddenly the dead stillness of the street is broken by the heavy tread
of some ponderous creature, walking and plunging through the Kamenivke
mud, and there appears the tall, broad figure of a man. He staggers like
one tipsy or sick, but he keeps on in a straight line, at an even pace,
like one born and bred and doomed to die in the familiar mud, till he
drags his way to a low, crouching house at the very end of the street,
almost under the hillside. It grows lighter--a bright flame shines
through the little window-panes. He has not reached the do