The question seemed to take some moments penetrating through Nehemiah's rapt brain, but at last he replied pathetically: 'And where shall I find achers? In Russia I had my living of it. Here I have no friends.' The homeliness of his vocabulary amused Barstein. Evidently the dictionary _was_ his fount of inspiration. Without it Niagara was reduced to a trickle. He seemed indeed quite shy of speech, preferring to gaze with large liquid eyes. 'But you _have_ managed to live here for ten years,' Barstein pointed out. 'You see how merciful God is!' Nehemiah rejoined eagerly. 'Never once has He deserted me and my children.' 'But what have you done?' inquired Barstein. The first shade of reproach came into Nehemiah's eyes. 'Ask sooner what the Almighty has done,' he said. Barstein felt rebuked. One does not like to lose one's character as a holy angel. 'But your restaurant?' he said. 'Where is that?' 'That is here.' 'Here!' echoed Barstein, staring round again. 'Where else? Here is a wide opening for a _kosher_ restaurant. There are hundreds and hundreds of Greeners lodging all around--poor young men with only a bed or a corner of a room to sleep on. They know not where to go to eat, and my wife, God be thanked, is a knowing cook.' 'Oh, then, your restaurant is only an idea.' 'Naturally--a counsel that I have given myself.' 'But have you enough plates and dishes and tablecloths? Can you afford to buy the food, and to risk it's not being eaten?' Nehemiah raised his hands to heaven. 'Not being eaten! With a family like mine!' Barstein laughed in spite of himself. And he was softened by noting how sensitive and artistic were Nehemiah's outspread hands--they might well have wielded the forceps. 'Yes, I dare say that is what will happen,' he said. 'How can you keep a restaurant up two pairs of stairs where no passer-by will ever see it?' As he spoke, however, he remembered staying in an hotel in Sicily which consisted entirely of one upper room. Perhaps in the Ghetto Sicilian fashions were paralleled.