occurred to me, too. You wonder how it is that I should set
myself up to expound the Torah to a townful of Jews, when my own
children have cast the Torah behind them. Therefore I now open the ark
and declare to you, Jews, before the holy scrolls of the Law, I have no
children any more. I am the last Rav of our family!"

Hereupon a piteous wail came from out of the women's Shool, but the
Rav's sonorous voice soon reduced them to silence, and once more the
Torah was being expounded in thunder over the heads of the open-mouthed
assembly.

Years, a whole decade of them, passed, and still the old Rav walked
erect, and not one silver hair showed in his curly beard, and the town
was still used to see him before daylight, a tall, solitary figure
carrying a stick and a lantern, on his way to the large old Bes
ha-Midrash, to study there in solitude--until Mouravanke began to ring
with the fame of her Charif, her great new scholar.

He was the son of a poor tailor, a pale, thin youth, with a pointed nose
and two sharp, black eyes, who had gone away at thirteen or so to study
in celebrated, distant academies, whence his name had spread round and
about. People said of him, that he was growing up to be a Light of the
Exile, that with his scholastic achievements he would outwit the acutest
intellects of all past ages; they said that he possessed a brain power
that ground "mountains" of Talmud to powder. News came that a quantity
of prominent Jewish communities had sent messengers, to ask him to come
and be their Rav.

Mouravanke was stirred to its depths. The householders went about
greatly perturbed, because their Rav was an old man, his days were
numbered, and he had no children to take his place.

So they came to the old Rav in his house, to ask his advice, whether it
was possible to invite the Mouravanke Charif, the tailor's son, to come
to them, so that he might take the place of the Rav on his death, in a
hundred and twenty years--seeing that the said young Charif was a
scholar distinguished by the acuteness of his intellect the only man
worthy of sitting in the seat of the Mouravanke Rabbonim.

The old Rav listened to the householders with lowering brows, and never
raised his eyes, and he answered them one word:

"Nu!"

So Mouravanke sent a messenger to the young Charif, offering him the
Rabbinate. The messenger was swift, and soon the news spread through the
town that the Charif was approaching.

When it was time fo