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Melchitsedek Pinchas was the Passover guest at Reb Shemuel's table, for the reek of his Sabbath cigar had not penetrated to the old man's nostrils. It was a great night for Pinchas; wrought up to fervid nationalistic aspirations by the memory of the Egyptian deliverance, which he yet regarded as mythical in its details.
This great theatre was his, this mighty audience his to melt and fire. 'I will await him in a box, he said. 'There's no room, said the usher. Pinchas threw up his head. 'I am the author of "Hamlet"! The usher winced as at a blow. All his life he had heard vaguely of 'Hamlet' as a great play that was acted on Broadway. And now here was the author himself!
But at that very instant Goldwater's voice returned to the bureau, ejaculating complacently: 'They're loving it, Kloot; they're swallowing it like ice-cream soda. Pinchas tingled with pleasure, but all Kloot replied was: 'You're wanted on the 'phone. 'Hello! called Goldwater. 'Hello! replied Pinchas in his natural voice. 'May a sudden death smite you!
Pinchas saw his enthusiasm had carried him too far, but his tongue was the most reckless of organs and often slipped into the truth. He was a real poet with an extraordinary faculty for language and a gift of unerring rhythm. He wrote after the mediaeval model with a profusion of acrostics and double rhyming not with the bald duplications of primitive Hebrew poetry.
"Certainly there must be a sub-editor," cried Pinchas eagerly. "Very well, then," said De Haan, struck with a sudden thought. "It is true Mr. Leon cannot do all the work. I know a young fellow who'll be just the very thing. He'll come for a pound a week." "But I'll come for a pound a week," said Ebenezer. "Yes, but you won't get it," said Schlesinger impatiently.
He, Pinchas, would write Judaea a real Patriotic Poem, which should be sung from the slums of Whitechapel to the Veldts of South Africa, and from the Mellah of Morocco to the Judengassen of Germany, and should gladden the hearts and break from the mouths of the poor immigrants saluting the Statue of Liberty in New York Harbor.
'Do not grieve so, I said, taking compassion upon her, 'I will buy thee another fowl. But she wept on, uncomforted. 'O woe! woe! she cried. 'We ate it all up yesterday." Pinchas was convulsed with laughter. Recovering himself, he lit his half-smoked cigar without asking leave. "I thought it would turn out differently," he said. "Like that story of the peacock.
Then I write him a speech a wonderful speech for him to make to his parents and the company at the breakfast, and in it, after he thanks them for their kindness, I make him say how, with the blessing of the Almighty, he will grow up to be a good Jew, and munificently support Hebrew literature and learned men like his revered teacher, Melchitsedek Pinchas.
"Methinks thou art little inferior," said Simcha, "for thou retainest little enough thereof. Let Pinchas get nothing for himself, 'tis his affair, but, if he wants my Hannah, he must get something for her. Were the fathers of the Mishna also fathers of families?" "Certainly; is it not a command 'Be fruitful and multiply'?" "And how did their families live?" "Many of our sages were artisans."
There was some cheering as Pinchas tossed his dishevelled locks and addressed the gathering, for everybody to whom he had ever spoken knew that he was a wise and learned man and a great singer in Israel. "Brethren in exile," said the poet. "The hour has come for laying the sweaters low. Singly we are sand-grains, together we are the simoom. Our great teacher, Moses, was the first Socialist.
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