"Well, do you want to starve him he should have no strength to look for work? Foolish woman! Take what you need; when he will work you will pay me up." And he would accept no thanks, Moishe Goldberg. * * * * * In spite of all he gave, his business grew. In a few years he had four stores, branched out in some leather finding business, and sold wholesale to smaller groceries in East New York and Brownsville. His promptitude made the wholesalers vie with each other as to who should sell him most. His good nature attracted customers from everywhere. He signed no notes and demanded none. Every one trusted him and he trusted everybody. He had a little note book in which he wrote down what was necessary. For the rest he had an excellent memory. Thus the business went on for years, and as the Jewish-Roumanian population grew on the east side his fame spread. By accident he became the owner of a few tenement houses. Rents were never due. People generally paid, and when they did not, because a husband was on strike or a child sick, it was soon forgotten. Each evening he would take together all the moneys and checks of the day and put them in a leather handbag. The next morning the whole was deposited in the bank. If a bill was due the same or the next day and there was not enough money in the bank, all he had to do was to 'phone up to one of his hundred wealthy friends and ask a check of two or three thousand dollars for a few days. On occasion it was reciprocated. His home life was an ideal one. He lived in the district. His wife was as good and old-fashioned as her husband, and though the girls went through high school, all they had modernized themselves was to use a little cold cream, against which the father protested. At twenty the older girl married a well-to-do furrier, to whom Moishe Goldberg gave a check of ten thousand dollars, after having promised only five, as dowry. The whole affair was carried along old-fashioned lines, through a marriage broker. The wedding was an event. Members from twenty societies brought wedding gifts worth into the thousands. But right at the wedding, Sofia, the younger daughter, fell in love with a cousin of her sister's husband, a young bookkeeper. There was nothing against the young man. He came from a good family, was well educated in Hebrew. Of course he shaved. But Moishe Goldberg was tolerant enough to understand. To his wife's objections he answered, "It's better a Jew without a beard than a beard without a Jew." There was only one serious objection. The young man was making very little money--twenty a week. But Sofia loved him. She was the only one now. "And after all," Moishe Goldberg said to his wife, "maybe it's better so. I will take him into the business. Why should my son-in-law work elsewhere? Sofia will continue to live with us. There is plenty room in the house."