“Bitter! Bitter! He wants to marry Miriam. The audacity of the wretch! My only child. And here he practically tells me to my face that he has been making love to her, and that he has ascertained that she is in love with him. And I never knew it. Never even suspected it. A curse on the scamp! Sneaking into my home to steal my daughter from me. The dishonourable villain! I trusted him. The viper. May he suffer a million torments! May the fiends possess him!” I ventured to suggest that it was the way of the world. I departed. Somewhat hastily. I did not like the way he glared at me. The next time I saw Rosnofsky he was walking excitedly up and down his shop, tearing his hair _en route_. When he saw me he sprang forward and clutched me by the shoulder. “Here!” he cried. “I will leave it to you. You were here when he had the audacity to confess his guilt to my face. Read this.” He thrust a crumpled piece of paper into my hand. “Read it, and tell me if there is another such villain upon this earth. Oh, I shall go mad!” I read it. It was from Lazarus. “I told you that I loved your daughter,” he wrote. “I told you that she loved me. And, like an honest man, I asked you to consent to our marriage. You refused. I now appeal to you again. You will make us both very happy by giving your consent, as we would like you to be present at the wedding. If you do not give your consent, we will not invite you. But we will get married, anyway. We will elope at the first opportunity. The only way to stop it is to keep Miriam locked in the house. Then I shall call in the police.” It was signed, “Lovingly, your son-in-law-to-be.” “How can I punish him?” asked Rosnofsky. I promised to think it over. I had called merely to tell Rosnofsky that I would accept his invitation to supper on Sader night, and to thank him. “You know the law,” he said. “When you come bring with you a plan to punish this scoundrel.” * * * * * It was the eve of the Passover, and I stood in the gloomy hallway tapping at Rosnofsky’s door. Dimly through the darkness I saw a quivering shadow, but in the labyrinths of tenement corridors it is unwise to investigate shadows. The door opened, and Rosnofsky, with “praying cap” upon his head, welcomed me to the feast of the Sader. Miriam was as sweet as a rose. I have not told you how pretty she was, nor shall I begin now, for it is a very tempting subject, such as would be likely to beguile a man into forgetting the thread of his story, and it was too dangerous for me to enter upon. Suffice it that her eyes were as glorious as—but there! The table was arranged for four, Rosnofsky, Miriam, and myself, and opposite Miriam’s seat was the chair for the Stranger. Now the custom of celebrating this feast, according to the ritual, is like this: Holding aloft the unleavened bread, the head of the house must say: