"Horse's head that you are!" Jake rejoined good-humoredly. "Do you mean to tell me that a moujik understands how to _fight_? A disease he does! He only knows how to strike like a bear [Jake adapted his voice and gesticulation to the idea of clumsiness], _an' dot'sh ull_! What does he _care_ where his paw will land, so he strikes. _But_ here one must observe _rulesh_ [rules]." At this point Meester Bernstein--for so the rabbinical-looking man was usually addressed by his shopmates--looked up from his dictionary. "Can't you see?" he interposed, with an air of assumed gravity as he turned to Jake's opponent, "America is an educated country, so they won't even break bones without grammar. They tear each other's sides according to 'right and left,'[2] you know." This was a thrust at Jake's right-handers and left-handers, which had interfered with Bernstein's reading. "Nevertheless," the latter proceeded, when the outburst of laughter which greeted his witticism had subsided, "I do think that a burly Russian peasant would, without a bit of grammar, crunch the bones of Corbett himself; and he would not _charge_ him a cent for it, either." [2] A term relating to the Hebrew equivalent of the letter _s_, whose pronunciation depends upon the right or left position of a mark over it. "_Is dot sho?_" Jake retorted, somewhat nonplussed. "_I betch you_ he would not. The peasant would lie bleeding like a hog before he had time to turn around." "_But_ they might kill each other in that way, _ain't it_, Jake?" asked a comely, milk-faced blonde whose name was Fanny. She was celebrated for her lengthy tirades, mostly in a plaintive, nagging strain, and delivered in her quiet, piping voice, and had accordingly been dubbed "The Preacher." "Oh, that will happen but very seldom," Jake returned rather glumly. The theatrical pair broke off their boasting match to join in the debate, which soon included all except the socialist; the former two, together with the two girls and the presser, espousing the American cause, while Malke the widow and "De Viskes" sided with Bernstein. "Let it be as you say," said the leader of the minority, withdrawing from the contest to resume his newspaper. "My grandma's last care it is who can fight best." "Nice pleasure, _anyhull_," remarked the widow. "_Never min'_, we shall see how it will lie in his head when he has a wife and children to _support_." Jake colored. "What does a _chicken_ know about these things?" he said irascibly. Bernstein again could not help intervening. "And you, Jake, can not do without 'these things,' can you? Indeed, I do not see how you manage to live without them."