I go back to the inn; the beadle comes, too. At my host's they still have services, the mourning for his wife not being ended. Between Minchah and Maariv, we get on to politics; after Maariv, on to the Jews. The greater part are dreadfully optimistic. In the first place, it's not a question of _them_, secondly, plans will not prosper against "Yainkil,"[75] he has brains of his own; thirdly, it's like a see-saw, now it goes up and now it goes down;[76] fourthly, God will help; fifthly, "good Jews" will not allow it to happen. The old song! "Believe me," exclaims one, with small, restless eyes under a low forehead, "believe me, if there were unity among all 'good Jews,' if they would hold together, as one man, and stop repeating Tachanun,[77] Messiah would _have_ to come!" "But the Kozenitz Rebbe, may his memory be blessed, _did_ stop," suggested another. "'One swallow,' replied the young man, 'does not make a summer.' Who talks of their imposing a prohibition on All-Israel?" There are times when one must set one's self against things--defend one's self. "If they were to issue a prohibition," says someone, ironically, and with a side-glance at me, "the heretics would take to praying, if only for the sake of saying Tachanun, so that Messiah should _not_ come." The company smile. "But where is the harm," asks someone else, "if the great people don't agree among themselves?" The company gave a groan. Doubtless each remembered how many times he had suffered unjustly on account of the want of unity, and the surest proof of Tishewitz having greatly suffered by reason of dissensions is, that no clear explanation was given as to who was at fault that the great were not at one, so fearful were they of provoking a fresh disagreement. I put forward that poverty had more to do with the differences than anything. There is nothing to trade with, people go about empty-handed, seeking quarrels to while away the time with; the proof is that in larger towns, where each goes about his own business, there is quiet. If someone, I opine, would throw into Tishewitz a few thousand rubles, everything would be forgotten. "To be sure, we know wealth is everything!" exclaims somebody. "If I had only had _so_ much brains, I could put all Tishewitz into my pocket to-day. It was just a toss-up--I had only to say the word." "True! True!" was heard on all sides. "It is an actual fact." The man who had only required to have _so_ much brains, or a little determination, to become rich, looked like poverty itself: lean, yellow, shrunk, "wept out," and in a cloak that had its only equal in the dressing-gown of the Tishewitz rabbi. Thereupon came the Maskil. Of course, he laughed. "Reb Elyeh, you must have bought the lucky number an hour before the drawing!" "Listen to his cheek!" says Reb Elyeh. "As if he couldn't remember the story!" "May my head not ache," swears the Maskil, "for so long as I have forgotten--if ever I heard the lies at all."