Saturday passed quietly. Sofia's eyes were a little red, but her husband seemed to want to make up for past misdeeds, and was very merry. At the synagogue he comported himself beautifully. Moishe Goldberg was especially proud of his son-in-law's reading from the scroll. "Well, what do you say to my American? He reads from the Holy Scroll like a charm." And everybody complimented him. * * * * * Sunday was a half holiday, but on Monday when the business started agoing, Waldman could not stand it. "Father," he said in the evening, "it can't go on that way. We must have some books. No business is carried on that way." "Books! bosh; don't bother about books. Attend to business." "But how can you know anything, father?" "Not being a bookkeeper, I know my business. The best proof that bookkeepers are not business men is that they are working for somebody else." The next day, and the next, and the next, Sofia's eyes were red from crying. "What should be the matter with her?" Mrs. Goldberg asked her husband. "The Talmud says, that a young couple are like a new wagon and a new horse. They must adjust themselves," was his answer. But the mother was not satisfied with the answer, and she got her daughter's confidence. "Ephraim wants to look for a position. He says he can't understand a business which has no bookkeeping. No modern business is carried on that way." The long and short of the story was that Moishe Goldberg was browbeaten by the two women. He gave his little notebook to his son-in-law who undertook to make an inventory of all the assets of Goldberg & Waldman. The old merchant had the fun of his life to watch the young man enter everything in his books. But the laughter died on his lips when this same young man told him that the assets were some sixty thousand dollars less than the liabilities. "It's a stupid lie! Only a silly fellow with a bookkeeping mania could say such a foolish thing." But the old man could not sleep that night. A few days later he was short of a couple of thousand dollars to pay a bill. He lacked the old-time courage to ring up one of his business friends. He could have gotten the money from his bank, but there too his courage failed him. * * * * * Little by little, yet rapidly enough, it was whispered about that the wealthy grocer was not as solid as had been thought. Six months after the wedding of his second daughter the red flag of the auctioneer hung in front of the store for the benefit of the creditors. "But how did it all happen?" asked his first son-in-law, the furrier when he arrived from Chicago, at the news of the calamity. Broken down, old, worn, sick, Moishe Goldberg moaned: "Because my daughter married a bookkeeper." THE STRENGTH OF THE WEAK _The Mastodon has disappeared but we are still pestered by flies._