An unusual though not astonishing sight met his eyes. The blinds of the first-floor-front of his own house were drawn down and a bright light from within glowed against them and streamed from under them. It could not be his wife dressing for dinner, for they did not have dinner, and had they been in the habit of dining neither of them would have thought of dressing. Their evening meal was tea; it might be with an egg or it might be with ham, but it was certainly tea. My father hastened his footsteps. The cause of this phenomenon had suddenly dawned on him. He opened the wooden gate-let with unwonted gentleness and without letting it swing to, which was the usual signal that he had come home. Then he went round to the back and softly let himself in. He walked along the passage and paused at the foot of the stairs. There was borne down to him from above the wail of an infant. He was obliged to catch hold of the bannisters, for his heart leapt into his mouth and nearly suffocated him. He sat down on the stairs to recover himself, while the tears of joy and pride welled into his tired eyes and flowed down his faded cheeks. The doctor on his way downstairs nearly fell over him. “Come, come, Mr. Rank, you must bear up. ‘In the midst of life we are in death.’” Apparently the doctor was condoling from force of habit. The speech was certainly alarming, and my father whitened. “But my wife?” “Mother and child, Mr. Rank, both doing well. It’s a boy.” The alarm disappeared from his face. He was a father at last. “An Isaac was born unto him.” “May I go up?” he asked timidly. “Most certainly, but be careful not to excite the patient.” My father went upstairs and knocked nervously. The nurse opened the door holding me in her arms. It is to my father’s credit, however, that he hardly cast a look at the desire of their married life, but crossed at once to the bed. My poor mother looked up tenderly and lovingly at the dowdy little figure bending over her, and smiled. “It’s a boy,” she whispered, and then added: “We wanted a boy.” My father pressed her hand gently, but remembering the doctor’s instructions not to excite the patient kissed her lips and stole gently out to look at his first, though somewhat late, born. A puckered face, to which the blood rushed spasmodically, clouding it almost to the suggestion of apoplexy, was all he could see. My father looked down at me and saw that I was dark. I could not well have been otherwise if he were to believe himself my father, for he was Jewish from the crown of his well-shaped head to the soles of his rather large feet. If my mother is to be credited, he was when she fell in love with him a singularly handsome little man, but at the time of my birth the physical blight which falls on nearly all men of our race towards middle age was upon him.