“Vail,” announced Mr. Blum, with a pathetically reflective air, “when I look around this table, and see all these smiling faces, and smell dot cooking, and drink dot wine--my Gott!--dot reminds me of the day I lainded at the Baittery, forty-five years ago, with just exactly six dollars in my pocket. I didn't much think then that I'd be here to-day. Hey, Rebecca?” “Ach, Gott is goot,” Mrs. Blum responded, lifting her hand and casting her eyes toward the ceiling. “Oh, papa,” murmured Mrs. Koch, with profound emotion, “and you didn't think you'd be a graindpa, neither, with such a loafly little graind-son, did you?” “I didn't think I'd be much of any thing at all, dot's a faict. I didn't haif no prospects, and I didn't haif no friends. If it hadn't been for my religion, I don't know what I done. I guess I commit suicide. But I was a good Jew, and I knew the Lord would help me. Then I got married, and dot brought me goot luck. When me and Rebecca got married, I was earning just exactly five dollars a week, as a journeyman tailor. There's an exaimple for you, Elias Bacharach.” “Your success has been very remarkable,” observed the rabbi. “My success--what you think my success has been due to, Elias Bacharach?” “Oh, to business wisdom--to what they call genius, I suppose.” “No, sir--no, siree. Nodings of the kind. I owe my success to three things: to my God, my wife, and my industry. I ain't no smarter than any other man. But all my life I been industrious; and the Lord has given me good health; and my wife has taken care of my earnings. All my life I go to work at six or seven o'clock every morning; and I don't never leave my work till it can spare me. You aisk my son-in-law. He tell you that I get down-town every morning at seven o'clock; and I don't go home in the busy season till ten or eleven at night; and I'm sixty-five years old. Dot's what mait my success. Hey, Rebecca?” “Ach, Gott!” cried Mrs. Blum. There was a frog in her voice, and her merry little eyes were dim with tears. She turned to Elias, and whispered: “Oh, he's such a _goot_ man, that man of mine!” “Elias Bacharach,” pursued Mr. Blum, “you see dot lady there, next to you--my wife? Vail, she's pretty near as old as I am, and maybe you don't think she's very hainsome. But I tell you this. She's just exactly as hainsome in my eyes to-day, as she was on the day when we got married; and that's forty years ago already.” Mrs. Blum was blushing now, peony red; and she cried out, “Oh, go'vay! Shut up!” And all around the table a laugh went, at the fond old couple's expense. When sobriety was restored, “I saw by the papers,” said the rabbi, “that the manufacturers of clothing have been having trouble with their workmen, lately--strikes, and that sort of thing. How have you got along with yours?” “Oh, we--we got along maiknificent,” Mr. Blum replied. “You see my son-in-law over there? He mainage the whole affair. You aisk him.”