"'I command'"--Peloni read the words with expansive magnificence, his poet's soul vibrating to that other royal dreamer's across the great Atlantic--"'that a strict Neutrality be maintained in the pending war betwixt Greece and Turkey. "'I abolish forever'"--Peloni's hand swept the air,--"'Polygamy among the Jews.'" "But where have we polygamy?" interrupted the _Possemacher_. "'As it is still practised in Africa and Asia,'" read on Peloni severely. "I'm off at once for Africa and Asia!" cried the marriage-jester, pretending to run. "Good business for me there." "You'll find better business in America," said Peloni scathingly. "For do not all our Austrian young men fly thither to marry, seeing that at home only the eldest son may found a family? A pretty fatherland indeed to be a citizen of--a step-fatherland. Listen, on the contrary, to the noble tolerance of the Jew. 'Christians are freely invited.'" "Ah! Do you know who'll go?" broke in a narrow-faced zealot. "The missionaries." Peloni continued hastily: "'Ararat is open, too, to the Caraites and the Samaritans. The Black Jews of India and Africa shall be welcome; our brethren in Cochin-China and the sect on the coast of Malabar; all are welcome.'" "Ha! ha! ha!" laughed a burly Jew. "So we're to live with the blacks. Enough of this joke!" But Peloni went on solemnly: "'A Capitation-tax on every Jew of Three Silver Shekels per annum--'" "Ah, now we have got to it!" and a great roar broke from the crowd. "Not a bad _Geschäft_, eh?" and they winked. "He is no fool, this Noah." Peloni's blood boiled. "Do you believe everybody is like yourselves?" he cried. "Listen!" "'I do appoint the first day of next Adar for a Thanksgiving Day to the God of Israel, for His divine protection and the fulfilment of His promises to the House of Israel. I recommend Peace and Union among ourselves, Charity and Good-will to all, Toleration and Liberality toward our Brethren of all Religions--'" "Didn't I say a missionary in disguise?" murmured the zealot. Peloni ended, with tremulous emotion: "'I humbly entreat to be remembered in your prayers, and earnestly do I enjoin you to "keep the charge of the Holy God," to walk in His ways, to keep His Statutes and His commandments and His judgments and Testimonies, as written in the Laws of Moses; "that thou mayest prosper in all thou doest and whithersoever thou turnest thyself." "'Given under our hand and seal in the State of New York, on the 2d of Ab 5586 in the Fiftieth Year of American Independence.'" * * * * *