"Well, call it usury, if you like. It doesn't amount to anything either way. Do you know what?" he exclaims, "take all my rubbish and welcome, bills of exchange, deeds--everything for twenty-five per cent, only pay me in cash. I will give up the usury, even the public house! Would to God I could get away to Palestine--but give me the cash! Take the whole concern and welcome! You imagine that we live on usury--it lives on us! People don't pay in, the debt increases. The more it increases, the less it's worth, and the poorer am I, upon my faith!" Before going out to take further notes, I witness a little scene. While I was taking up all my things, paper, pencil, cigarettes, Reb Bòruch was buttering bread for the children to take with them to Cheder. They had each two slices of bread and butter and a tiny onion as a relish. "Now go!" he says; he does not want them in the public house. But the little orphan is not satisfied. He hunches his shoulders and pulls a wry face preparatory to crying. He feels a bit ashamed, however, to cry before me, and waits till I shall have gone; but he cannot tarry so long and gives vent to a wail: "Another little onion," he wants. "Mother always gave _me_ two!" The sister has come running into the tap-room, she has caught up another onion and gives it to him. "Go!" says she also, but much more gently. The mother's voice sounded in her words. WHAT SHOULD A JEWESS NEED? We go from house to house, from number to number. I can see for myself which houses are inhabited by Jews and which by non-Jews; I have only to look in the window. Dingy windows are a sure sign of "Thou hast chosen us," still more so broken panes replaced by cushions and sacking. On the other hand, flower-pots and curtains portray the presence of those who have no such right to poverty as the others. One meets with exceptions--here lives, _not_ a Jew, but a drunkard--and here again--flowers and curtains, but they read _Hazefirah_.[63] The worst impression I receive is that made upon me by a great, weird, wooden house. It is larger, but blacker and dirtier than all the other houses. The frontage leans heavily over and looks down upon its likeness--also an old, blackened ruin--upon an old, dried up, bent and tottering Jewess, who is haggling with her customer--a sallow, frowzy maid-servant--over an addition to a pound of salt. The beadle points the old woman out to me: "That is the mistress of the house." I was astonished: the Jewess is too poor for such a house. "The house," explains the beadle, "is not exactly hers. She pays only one-sixth of the rent--she is a widow--but the heirs, her children, do not live here--so she is called the mistress." "How much does the house bring in?" "Nothing at all." "And it's worth?" "About fifteen hundred rubles." "And nothing is made by it?" "It stands empty. Who should live there?" "How do you mean, who?"