At our wine-shop we had a frequent visitor, Tchitchick, the bandmaster, whom we used to call "Mr. Sergeant." He was a tall, powerful man with a big round beard and terrifying eyebrows. And he talked a curiously mixed-up jargon composed of several languages. When he talked, he moved his eyebrows up and down. When he lowered his eyebrows, his face was black as night. When he raised them up, his face was bright as day. And this was because, under these same thick eyebrows he had a pair of kindly, smiling light blue eyes. He wore a uniform with gilt buttons, and that is why he was called at our place "Mr. Sergeant." He was a very frequent visitor at our wine-shop. Not because he was a drunkard. God forbid! But for the simple reason that my father was very clever at making from raisins "the best and finest Hungarian wine." Tchitchick used to love this wine. He never ceased from praising it. He used to put his big, terrifying hand on my father's shoulder, and say to him: "Mr. Cellarer, you have the best Hungarian wine. There isn't such wine in Buda Pesth, by God!" With me Tchitchick was always on the most intimate terms. He praised me for learning such a lot at school. He often examined me to see if I knew who Adam was. And who was Isaac? And who was Joseph? "Yousef?" I asked him, in Yiddish. "Do you mean Yousef the Saint?" "Joseph," he repeated. "Yousef," I corrected him, once again. "With us it's Joseph. With you it's Youdsef," he said to me, and pinched my cheek. "Joseph, Youdsef, Youdsef, Dsodsepf--what does it matter? It is all the same." "Ha! ha! ha!" I buried my face in my hands, and laughed heartily. But from the day I became a bridegroom-elect, Tchitchick gave up playing with me as if I were a clown; and he began to talk to me as if I were his equal. He told me stories of the regiment and of musicians. "Mr. Sergeant" had a tremendous lot of talk in him. But no one else excepting myself had the time to listen to him. On one occasion he began to talk to me of playing. And I asked him: "On which instrument does 'Mr. Sergeant' play?" "On all instruments," he answered, and raised his eyebrows at me. "On the fiddle, also?" I asked him. And all at once he took on, in my imagination, the face of an angel. "Come over to me some day," he said, "and I will play for you." "When can I come to you Mr. Sargeant, if not on the Sabbath day?" I asked. "But I can only come on condition that no-one knows anything about it." "Can you promise that?" "As I serve God," he exclaimed, and lifted his eyebrows at me.