'Well, then,' said De Haan triumphantly, 'if they are capable of that, they are capable of any wickedness. Orthodox people can have nothing to do with them.' 'But orthodox immigrants take their money,' said Raphael. 'Their money is _kosher_; they are _tripha_,' said De Haan sententiously. 'Page 7--now we get to the most dreadful thing of all!' A solemn silence fell on the room. Pinchas sniggered unobtrusively. 'You have a little article headed "Talmudic Tales." Why in Heaven's name you couldn't have finished the column with bits of news I don't know. Satan himself must have put the thought into your head. Just at the end of the paper, too! For I can't reckon page 8, which is simply our own advertisement.' 'I thought it would be amusing,' said Raphael. 'Amusing! If you had simply told the tales, it might have been. But look how you introduce them! "These amusing tales occur in the fifth chapter of Baba Bathra, and are related by Rabbi Bar Bar Channah. Our readers will see that they are parables or allegories rather than actual facts."' 'But do you mean to say you look upon them as facts?' cried Raphael, sawing the air wildly, and pacing about on the toes of the committee. 'Surely!' said De Haan, while a low growl at his blasphemous doubts ran along the lips of the committee. 'Was it treacherously to undermine Judaism that you so eagerly offered to edit for nothing?' said the furniture-dealer who was always failing. 'But listen here!' cried Raphael, exasperated. '"Harmez, the son of Lilith, a demon, saddled two mules and made them stand on opposite sides of the river Doneg. He then jumped from the back of one to that of the other. He had, at the time, a cup of wine in each hand, and as he jumped he threw the wine from each cup into the other without spilling a drop, although a hurricane was blowing at the time. When the king of demons heard that Harmez had been thus showing off to mortals, he slew him." Do any of you believe that?' 'Vould our sages--their memories for a blessing!--put anything into the Talmud that vasn't true?' queried Sugarman. 'Ve know there are demons because it stands that Solomon knew their language.' 'But, then, what about this?' pursued Raphael. '"I saw a frog which was as big as the district of Akra Hagronia. A sea-monster came and swallowed the frog, and a raven came and ate the sea-monster. The raven then went and perched on a tree. Consider how strong that tree must have been. R. Papa Ben Samuel remarks: Had I not been present, I should not have believed it." Doesn't this appendix about Ben Samuel show that it was never meant to be taken seriously?' 'It has some high meaning we do not understand in these degenerate times,' said Guedalyah the Greengrocer. 'It is not for our paper to weaken faith in the Talmud.' 'Hear, hear!' said De Haan, while '_Epikouros!_' rumbled through the air like distant thunder. 'Didn't I say an Englishman could never master the Talmud?' Sugarman asked in triumph.