It was noon on the Day of Atonement which followed nine days after the _Rosh Hashonah_ memorable to more than one by the oration of Reb Monash, noon in Cambridge Street, a thoroughfare in Doomington far removed from the region of the synagogues, which, for this day, were crowded from dawn to dusk by the day-long worshippers. The most pious did not move from within their precincts; the less pious withdrew occasionally to the immediate environs. All who were sacrilegious on all the other three hundred and sixty-four days, on this day rigidly fasted, and, having no regular pew in a regular synagogue, were devoutly glad to pay for the privilege of any pew in any synagogue. If they gainsaid or were indifferent to the precepts of their faith on other days, who could forswear the immemorial terror of this day? If they had been building all the year a palisade between Heaven and themselves, on this day, who knew, they might enter Heaven through a breach in the palisade. On the night concluding _Yom Kippur_ many looked forward to the impieties of the morrow as if these had been annulled in anticipation. But most felt that if all else were _démodé_, _Yom Kippur_ stood august beyond fashion. Even the great jewellery and general emporia of Doomington shut their doors, though they exhibited a note to the effect that cleaning operations were in progress, so that their credit with their more Nonconformist customers might remain unimpaired. Bob Cohen, who lived with a _goyah_, a Gentile lady, all the year round, became entirely oblivious of her existence for these twenty-four hours, in a synagogue several towns away from the scene of his amour. In _shool_ his fervent contrition was only drowned by the self-reproaches of the penitents whose perpetual state was the strictest matrimonial chastity. Avowed atheists put in an appearance despite all their logic. There were few Jews in Doomington that day beyond the circumference of a circle whose radius was half a mile in any direction from the _Polisher Shool_. Hence it was surprising to see Alec Segal in a shop doorway far up Cambridge Street on the afternoon of _Yom Kippur_. It added to the surprise to find Harry Sewelson join him after some minutes, for the four parents of these youths, emancipated to the pitch of transferring a kettle to and from the fire on _shabbos_, were yet very far from the transgression of this ultimate sanctity; a sanctity of such awe as might overwhelm spirits even of the defiant aloofness of Segal and Harry. "You're late!" said Segal. "Three minutes!" "Six and a half to be precise!" "You'll be taking notes of how long your neck's in the noose before you're dead...." "Yes, and make a graph of the parabola of my descent. But why are you late? Called in at a public-house _en route_?" "No fear! I've had a drink at the scullery-tap, it was a little less ostentatious. I suppose you've had a drink?"