'And why not? It would be better than sitting playing solo on Sundays. We are not in Palestine now.' 'Oh, Simeon Samuels has been talking to you, has he?' 'I don't need Simeon Samuels' wisdom. I'm an Englishman myself.' XX The desperate measures of the Sub-Committee were successful. The other marine-dealers hastened to associate themselves with the plan of campaign, and Simeon Samuels soon departed in search of a more pious seaport. But, alas! homoeopathy was only half-vindicated. For the remedy proved worse than the disease, and the cutting-out of the original plague-spot left the other marine-stores still infected. The epidemic spread from them till it had overtaken half the shops of the congregation. Some had it in a mild form--only one shutter open, or a back door not closed--but in many it came out over the whole shop-window. The one bright spot in the story of the Sudminster Sabbath is that the congregation of which the present esteemed _Parnass_ is Solomon Barzinsky, Esq., J.P., managed to avert the threatened split, and that while in so many other orthodox synagogues the poor minister preaches on the Sabbath to empty benches, the Sudminster congregation still remains at the happy point of compromise acutely discovered by Simeon Samuels: of listening reverentially every Saturday morning to the unchanging principles of its minister-elect, the while its shops are engaged in supplying the wants of Christendom. THE RED MARK THE RED MARK The curious episode in the London Ghetto the other winter, while the epidemic of small-pox was raging, escaped the attention of the reporters, though in the world of the Board-schools it is a vivid memory. But even the teachers and the committees, the inspectors and the Board members, have remained ignorant of the part little Bloomah Beckenstein played in it. To explain how she came to be outside the school-gates instead of inside them, we must go back a little and explain her situation both outside and inside her school. Bloomah was probably '_Blume_,' which is German for a flower, but she had always been spelt 'Bloomah' in the school register, for even Board-school teachers are not necessarily familiar with foreign languages. They might have been forgiven for not connecting Bloomah with blooms, for she was a sad-faced child, and even in her tenth year showed deep, dark circles round her eyes. But they were beautiful eyes, large, brown, and soft, shining with love and obedience. Mrs. Beckenstein, however, found neither of these qualities in her youngest born, who seemed to her entirely sucked up by the school. 'In my days,' she would grumble, 'it used to be God Almighty first, your parents next, and school last. Now it's all a red mark first, your parents and God Almighty nowhere.'