Who made Isshur what he was? Ask me an easier question. There are types of whom it can be said they are cast, fixed. They never move out of their place. As you see them the first time, so are they always. It seems they always were as they are, and will ever remain the same. When I was a child, I could not tear myself away from Isshur. I was always puzzling out the one question--What was Isshur like before he was Isshur? That is to say, before he got those terrifying eyebrows, and the big hooked nose that was always filled with snuff, and the big brass beard that started by being thick and heavy, and ended up in a few, long straggling, terrifying hairs. How did he look when he was a child, ran about barefoot, went to "_Cheder_," and was beaten by his teacher? And what was Isshur like when his mother was carrying him about in her arms, when she suckled him, wiped his nose for him, and said: "Isshur, my sweet boy. My beautiful boy. May I suffer instead of your little bones?" These were the questions that puzzled me when I was a child, and could not tear myself away from Isshur. "Go home, wretches. May the devil take your father and mother." And Isshur would not even allow any one to think of him. Surely, I was only one boy, yet Isshur called me wretches. You must know that Isshur hated to have any one staring at him. Isshur hated little children. He could not bear them. "Children," he said, "are naturally bad. They are scamps and contradictory creatures. Children are goats that leap into strange gardens. Children are dogs that snap at one's coat-tails. Children are pigs that crawl on the table. Children should be taught manners. They ought to be made to tremble, as with the ague." And we did tremble as if we had the ague. Why were we afraid, you ask. Well, would you not be afraid if you were taken by the ear, dragged to the door, and beaten over the neck and shoulders? "Go home, wretches. May the devil take your father and mother." You will tell your mother on him? Well, try it. You want to know what will happen? I will tell you. You will go home and show your mother your torn ear. Your mother will pounce on your father. "You see how the tyrant has torn the ear of your child--your only son." Your father will take you by the hand to the synagogue, and straight over to Isshur the beadle, as if to say to him: "Here, see what you have done to my only son. You have almost torn off his ear." And Isshur will reply to my father's unspoken words: "Go in health with your wretches." You hear? Even an only son is also wretches. And what can father do? Push his hat on one side, and go home. Mother will ask him: "Well?" And he will reply: "I gave it to him, the wicked one, the Haman! What more could I do to him?" It is not at all nice that a father should tell such a big lie. But what is one to do when one is under the yoke of a beadle? * * *