ain't much compensation for me goin' away for
ever--where the stormy winds do blow, so to say--an' never as much as
seein' me own wife agin for better nor wuss. Between man an' man, now,
three quid, an' I'll shunt. That's fair, ain't it?"

"Of course it's fair," Simmons replied, effusively. "It's more'n fair:
it's noble--downright noble, _I_ call it. But I ain't goin' to take a
mean advantage o' your good-'artedness, Mr. Ford. She's your wife, an'
I oughtn't to 'a' come between you. I apologise. You stop an' 'ave yer
proper rights. It's me as ought to shunt, an' I will." And he made a
step toward the door.

"'Old on," quoth Ford, and got between Simmons and the door; "don't do
things rash. Look wot a loss it'll be to you with no 'ome to go to,
an' nobody to look after ye, an' all that. It'll be dreadful. Say a
couple--there, we won't quarrel, jest a single quid, between man
an' man, an' I'll stand a pot out o' the money. You can easy raise a
quid--the clock 'ud pretty nigh do it. A quid does it, an' I'll--"

There was a loud double knock at the front door. In the East End a
double knock is always for the upstairs lodgers.

"Oo's that?" asked Bob Ford, apprehensively.

"I'll see," said Thomas Simmons, in reply, and he made a rush for the
staircase.

Bob Ford heard him open the front door. The he went to the window, and
just below him he saw the crown of a bonnet. It vanished, and borne
to him from within the door there fell upon his ear the sound of a
well-remembered female voice.

"Where ye goin' now with no 'at?" asked the voice, sharply.

"Awright, 'Anner--there's--there's somebody upstairs to see you,"
Simmons answered. And, as Bob Ford could see, a man went scuttling down
the street in the gathering dusk. And behold, it was Thomas Simmons.

Ford reached the landing in three strides. His wife was still at the
front door, staring after Simmons. He flung into the back room, threw
open the window, dropped from the wash-house roof into the back yard,
scrambled desperately over the fence, and disappeared into the gloom.
He was seen by no living soul. And that is why Simmons's base
desertion--under his wife's very eyes, too--is still an astonishment to
the neighbours.

A ROSE OF THE GHETTO, By Israel Zangwill

One day it occurred to Leibel that he ought to get married. He went to
Sugarman the Shadchan forthwith.

"I have the very thing for you," said the great marriage broker.

"Is she pretty?" ask