Now that he heard I was buying Palestinian earth, he began by refusing to believe it, and declared it was a take-in and the trick of an apostate, for how could a person who laughed at socks on the Ninth of Ab really want to buy earth of Palestine? But when he saw the green shawls and the little bags of earth, he went over--a way he has--to the opposite, the exact opposite. He began to worship me, couldn't praise me enough, and talked of me in the back streets, so that the women blessed me aloud. Yuedel was now much given to my company, and often came in to see me, and was most intimate, although there was no special piousness about me. I was just the same as before, but Yuedel took this for the best of signs, and thought it proved me to be of extravagant hidden piety. "There's a Jew for you!" he would cry aloud in the street. "Earth of Palestine! There's a Jew!" In short, he filled the place with my Jewishness and my hidden orthodoxy. I looked on with indifference, but after a while the affair began to cost me both time and money. The Palestinian beggars and, above all, Yuedel and the townsfolk obtained for me the reputation of piety, and there came to me orthodox Jews, treasurers, cabalists, beggar students, and especially the Rebbe's followers; they came about me like bees. They were never in the habit of avoiding me, but this was another thing all the same. Before this, when one of the Rebbe's disciples came, he would enter with a respectful demeanor, take off his hat, and, sitting in his cap, would fix his gaze on my mouth with a sweet smile; we both felt that the one and only link between us lay in the money that I gave and he took. He would take it gracefully, put it into his purse, as it might be for someone else, and thank me as though he appreciated my kindness. When _I_ went to see _him_, he would place a chair for me, and give me preserve. But now he came to me with a free and easy manner, asked for a sip of brandy with a snack to eat, sat in my room as if it were his own, and looked at me as if I were an underling, and he had authority over me; I am the penitent sinner, it is said, and that signifies for him the key to the door of repentance; I have entered into his domain, and he is my lord and master; he drinks my health as heartily as though it were his own, and when I press a coin into his hand, he looks at it well, to make sure it is worth his while accepting it. If I happen to visit him, I am on a footing with all his followers, the Chassidim; his "trustees," and all his other hangers-on, are my brothers, and come to me when they please, with all the mud on their boots, put their hand into my bosom and take out my tobacco-pouch, and give it as their opinion that the brandy is weak, not to talk of holidays, especially Purim and Rejoicing of the Law, when they troop in with a great noise and vociferation, and drink and dance, and pay as much attention to me as to the cat.