Before starting on their prandial fried fish, these trencher-men took from the dainties wherewith the ornamental plates were laden and gave thereof to their offspring.  Now this was only right and proper, because it is the prerogative of children to “nash” on these occasions.  But as the meal progressed, each father from time to time, while talking briskly to his neighbor, allowed his hand to stray mechanically into the plates and thence negligently backwards into the hand of his infant, who stuffed the treasure into his pockets.  Sugarman fidgeted about uneasily; not one surreptitious seizure escaped him, and every one pricked him like a needle.  Soon his soul grew punctured like a pin-cushion.  The Shalotten Shammos was among the worst offenders, and he covered his back-handed proceedings with a ceaseless flow of complimentary conversation.

“Excellent fish, Mrs. 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.

“No,” Bessie interposed.  “What do you mean?”

“At home in my town,” said Mr. Belcovitch impressively, “a fish made a noise in the pan one Friday.”

“Well? and suppose?” said the Shalotten Shammos, passing a fig to the rear, “the oil frizzles.”

“Nothing of the kind,” said Belcovitch angrily, “A real living noise.  The woman snatched it out of the pan and ran with it to the Rabbi.  But he did not know what to do.  Fortunately there was staying with him for the Sabbath a travelling Saint from the far city of Ridnik, a Chasid, very skilful in plagues and purifications, and able to make clean a creeping thing by a hundred and fifty reasons.  He directed the woman to wrap the fish in a shroud and give it honorable burial as quickly as possible.  The funeral took place the same afternoon and a lot of people went in solemn procession to the woman’s back garden and buried it with all seemly rites, and the knife with which it had been cut was buried in the same grave, having been defiled by contact with the demon.  One man said it should be burned, but that was absurd because the demon would be only too glad to find itself in its native element, but to prevent Satan from rebuking the woman any more its mouth was stopped with furnace ashes.  There was no time to obtain Palestine earth, which would have completely crushed the demon.”

“The woman must have committed some Avirah” said Karlkammer.

“A true story!” said the Shalotten Shammos, ironically.  “That tale has been over Warsaw this twelvemonth.”

“It occurred when I was a boy,” affirmed Belcovitch indignantly.  “I remember it quite well.  Some people explained it favorably.  Others were of opinion that the soul of the fishmonger had transmigrated into the fish, an opinion borne out by the death of the fishmonger a few days before.  And the Rabbi is still alive to prove it—­may his light continue to shine—­though they write that he has lost his memory.”