"Ah, but he'll never know _Cabbulah_," said Malka, driven to her last citadel. "But then no one in England can study _Cabbulah_ since the days of Rabbi Falk (the memory of the righteous for a blessing) any more than a born Englishman can learn Talmud. There's something in the air that prevents it. In my town there was a Rabbi who could do _Cabbulah_; he could call Abraham our father from the grave. But in this pig-eating country no one can be holy enough for the Name, blessed be It, to grant him the privilege. I don't believe the _Shochetim_ kill the animals properly; the statutes are violated; even pious people eat _tripha_ cheese and butter. I don't say thou dost, Méshe, but thou lettest thy children." "Well, your own butter is not _kosher_," said Moses, nettled. "My butter? What does it matter about my butter? I never set up for a purist. I don't come of a family of Rabbonim. I'm only a business woman. It's the _froom_ people that I complain of; the people who ought to set an example, and are lowering the standard of _Froomkeit_. I caught a beadle's wife the other day washing her meat and butter plates in the same bowl of water. In time they will be frying steaks in butter, and they will end by eating _tripha_ meat out of butter plates, and the judgment of God will come. But what is become of thine apple? Thou hast not gorged it already?" Moses nervously pointed to his trousers pocket, bulged out by the mutilated globe. After his first ravenous bite Moses had bethought himself of his responsibilities. "It's for the _kinder_," he explained. "_Nu_, the _kinder_!" snorted Malka disdainfully. "And what will they give thee for it? Verily, not a thank you. In my young days we trembled before the father and the mother, and my mother, peace be upon him, _potched_ my face after I was a married woman. I shall never forget that slap--it nearly made me adhere to the wall. But now-a-days our children sit on our heads. I gave my Milly all she has in the world--a house, a shop, a husband, and my best bed-linen. And now when I want her to call the child Yosef, after my first husband, peace be on him, her own father, she would out of sheer vexatiousness, call it Yechezkel." Malka's voice became more strident than ever. She had been anxious to make a species of vicarious reparation to her first husband, and the failure of Milly to acquiesce in the arrangement was a source of real vexation. Moses could think of nothing better to say than to inquire how her present husband was. "He overworks himself," Malka replied, shaking her head. "The misfortune is that he thinks himself a good man of business, and he is always starting new enterprises without consulting me. If he would only take my advice more!" Moses shook his head in sympathetic deprecation of Michael Birnbaum's wilfulness. "Is he at home?" he asked. "No, but I expect him back from the country every minute. I believe they have invited him for the _Pidyun Haben_ to-day." "Oh, is that to-day?"