Yossel shook his head. 'And after I had the fare, how should I live? Here I make a few _Gulden_ by writing letters for people to their relatives in America; in Prague everybody is very learned; they don't need a scribe. Besides, if I cannot die in Palestine I might as well die where I was born.' 'But why can't you die in Palestine?' cried the artist with a new burst of hope. 'You _shall_ die in Palestine, I promise you.' The gleam in Yossel's face became a great flame of joy. 'I shall die in Palestine?' he asked ecstatically. 'As sure as I live! I will pay your fare the whole way, second-class.' For a moment the dazzling sunshine continued on Yossel's face, then a cloud began to pass across it. 'But how can I take your money? I am not a _Schnorrer_.' Schneemann did not find the question easy to answer. The more so as Yossel's eagerness to go and die in Palestine seemed to show that there was no reason for packing him off. However, he told himself that one must make assurance doubly sure and that, even if it was all empty gossip, still he had stumbled upon a way of making an old man happy. 'There is no reason why you should take my money,' he said with an artistic inspiration, 'but there is every reason why I should buy to myself the _Mitzvah_ (good deed) of sending you to Jerusalem. You see, I have so few good deeds to my credit.' 'So I have heard,' replied Yossel placidly. 'A very wicked life it is said you lead at Rome.' 'Most true,' said the artist cheerfully. 'It is said also that you break the Second Commandment by making representations of things that are on sea and land.' 'I would the critics admitted as much,' murmured the artist. 'Your grandmother does not understand. She thinks you paint houses--which is not forbidden. But I don't undeceive her--it would pain her too much.' The lover-like sentiment brought back the artist's alarm. 'When will you be ready to start?' he said. Yossel pondered. 'But to die in Palestine one must live in Palestine,' he said. 'I cannot be certain that God would take my soul the moment I set foot on the holy soil.' The artist reflected a moment, but scarcely felt rich enough to guarantee that Yossel should live in Palestine, especially if he were an unconscionably long time a-dying. A happy thought came to him. 'But there is the _Chalukah_,' he reminded Yossel. 'But that is charity.' 'No--it is not charity, it is a sort of university endowment. It is just to support such old students as you that these sums are sent from all the world over. The prayers and studies of our old men in Jerusalem are a redemption to all Israel. And yours would be to me in particular.' 'True, true,' said Yossel eagerly; 'and life is very cheap there, I have always heard.' 'Then it is a bargain,' slipped unwarily from the artist's tongue. But Yossel replied simply: 'May the blessings of the Eternal be upon you for ever and for ever, and by the merit of my prayers in Jerusalem may your sins be forgiven.'