"So I understand you make a good thing of it, you are quite a wealthy man." "My wealth be to my enemies!" Chayyim wanted to draw back, but after a glance at Loibe-Baeres' shining face, at the blue jar with the jelly, he answered proudly: "Thank Heaven, I have nothing to complain of!" "There goes your charitable loan!" The thought came like a kick in the back of his head. "Why are you boasting like that? Tell him you want twenty-five rubles for Ulas--that he must save you, that you are in despair, that--" But Chayyim fell deeper and deeper into a contented and happy way of talking, praised his business more and more, and conversed with the Gevir as with an equal. But he soon began to feel he was one too many, that he should not have sat there so long, or have talked in that way. It would have been better to have talked about the fair, about a loan. Now it is too late: "I have no need of money!" and Chayyim gave a despairing look at Loibe-Baeres' cheerful face, at the two little boys who sat opposite and watched him with sly, mischievous eyes, and who whispered knowingly to each other, and then smiled more knowingly still! A cold perspiration covered him. He rose from his chair. "You are going already?" observed Loibe-Baeres, politely. "Now perhaps I could ask him!" It flashed across Chayyim's mind that he might yet save himself, but, stealing a glance at the two boys with the roguish eyes that watched him so slyly, he replied with dignity: "I must! Business! There is no time!" and it seems to him, as he goes toward the door, that the two little boys with the mischievous eyes are putting out their tongues after him, and that Loibe-Baeres himself smiles and says, "Stick your tongues out further, further still!" Chayyim's shoulders seem to burn, and he makes haste to get out of the house. THE TWO BROTHERS It is three months since Yainkele and Berele--two brothers, the first fourteen years old, the second sixteen--have been at the college that stands in the town of X--, five German miles from their birthplace Dalissovke, after which they are called the "Dalissovkers." Yainkele is a slight, pale boy, with black eyes that peep slyly from beneath the two black eyebrows. Berele is taller and stouter than Yainkele, his eyes are lighter, and his glance is more defiant, as though he would say, "Let me alone, I shall laugh at you all yet!"