"Rebecca Schwartz dead!" screamed the Rabbi, for he had once loved the maiden himself, and, not having married her, had still a tenderness for her. "Rebecca Schwartz," repeated Yankelé inexorably. "Was it the cholera?" faltered the Rabbi. "No, she vas heart-broke." Rabbi Remorse Red-herring silently pushed his plate away, and leaned his elbows upon the table and his face upon his palms, and his chin upon the bottle of _schnapps_ in mournful meditation. [Illustration: "IN MOURNFUL MEDITATION."] "You are not eating, Rabbi," said Yankelé insinuatingly. "I have lost my appetite," said the Rabbi. "Vat a pity to let food get cold and spoil! You'd better eat it." The Rabbi shook his head querulously. "Den I vill eat it," cried Yankelé indignantly. "Good hot food like dat!" "As you like," said the Rabbi wearily. And Yankelé began to eat at lightning speed, pausing only to wink at the inscrutable Manasseh; and to cast yearning glances at the inaccessible _schnapps_ that supported the Rabbi's chin. Presently the Rabbi looked up: "You're quite sure all these people are dead?" he asked with a dawning suspicion. "May my blood be poured out like this _schnapps_," protested Yankelé, dislodging the bottle, and vehemently pouring the spirit into a tumbler, "if dey be not." The Rabbi relapsed into his moody attitude, and retained it till his wife brought in a big willow-pattern china dish of stewed prunes and pippins. She produced four plates for these, and so Yankelé finished his meal in the unquestionable status of a first-class guest. The Rabbi was by this time sufficiently recovered to toy with two platefuls in a melancholy silence which he did not break till his mouth opened involuntarily to intone the grace. [Illustration: "PRUNES AND PIPPINS."] When grace was over he turned to Manasseh and said, "And what was this way you were suggesting to me of getting a profitable Sephardic connection?" "I did, indeed, wonder why you did not extend your practice as consolation preacher among the Spanish Jews," replied Manasseh gravely. "But after what we have just heard of the death-rate of Jews in Grodno, I should seriously advise you to go back there." "No, they cannot forget that I was once a boy," replied the Rabbi with equal gravity. "I prefer the Spanish Jews. They are all well-to-do. They may not die so often as the Russians, but they die better, so to speak. You will give me introductions, you will speak of me to your illustrious friends, I understand." "You understand!" repeated Manasseh in dignified astonishment. "You do not understand. I shall do no such thing." "But you yourself suggested it!" cried the Rabbi excitedly.