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"We haven't come to discuss the figures of the Maggid's name, but of his salary." said Mr. Belcovitch, who prided himself on his capacity for conducting public business. "I have examined the finances," said Karlkammer, "and I don't see how we can possibly put aside more for our preacher than the pound a week." "But he is not satisfied," said Mr. Belcovitch.
Belcovitch, confidently and in a confidential manner. "If I had died as a young man, Shosshi, it might have been different." Shosshi pricked up his ears to listen to the tale of Bear's wild cubhood. "One morning," said Belcovitch, "in Poland, I got up at four o'clock to go to Supplications for Forgiveness. The air was raw and there was no sign of dawn!
Becky made no reply, so Shosshi continued: "But my mother is always a sick person. She has to swallow bucketsful of cod liver oil. She cannot be long for this world." "Nonsense, nonsense," put in Mrs. Belcovitch, appearing suddenly behind the lovers. "My children's children shall never be any worse; it's all fancy with her, she coddles herself too much."
Sugarman," he said, dexterously slipping some almonds behind his chair. "What?" said Mrs. Sugarman, who was hard of hearing. "First-class plaice!" shouted the Shalotten Shammos, negligently conveying a bunch of raisins. "So they ought to be," said Mrs. Sugarman in her thin tinkling accents, "they were all alive in the pan." "Ah, did they twitter?" said Mr. Belcovitch, pricking up his ears.
Out of the corners of his eyes he caught a glimpse of an appalling beauty standing behind a sewing machine. His face fired up, his legs began to quiver, he wished the ground would open and swallow him as it did Korah. "Becky," said Mr. Belcovitch, "this is Mr. Shosshi Shmendrik."
Belcovitch was President and their synagogue was the ground floor of No. 1 Royal Street two large rooms knocked into one, and the rear partitioned off for the use of the bewigged, heavy-jawed women who might not sit with the men lest they should fascinate their thoughts away from things spiritual.
Belcovitch saw his embarrassment, and, making a sign to Chayah, slipped out of the room followed by his wife. Shosshi was left alone with the terribly fine maid. Becky stood still, humming a little air and looking up at the ceiling, as if she had forgotten Shosshi's existence. With her eyes in that position it was easier for Shosshi to look at her.
"Hoi, hoi," said Shosshi in horror, his red hands quivering. "Yes," said Bear mournfully, "I had worn them for ten years and moreover the leaven had denied all my Passovers." Belcovitch also entertained the lover with details of the internal politics of the "Sons of the Covenant." Shosshi's affection for Becky increased weekly under the stress of these intimate conversations with her family.
Black bread and potatoes and pickled herrings made up the bulk of the every-day diet No, no one could accuse Bear Belcovitch of fattening on the entrails of his employees. The furniture was of the simplest and shabbiest, no aesthetic instinct urged the Kosminskis to overpass the bare necessities of existence, except in dress.
He spent a great deal of his time in avoiding being drawn into the contending factions of the congregation and in steering equally between Belcovitch and the Shalotten Shammos. The Sons only gave him fifty a year for all his trouble, but they eked it out by allowing him to be on the Committee, where on the question of a rise in the Reader's salary he was always an ineffective minority of one.
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