Becky was sitting sewing buttonholes when Shosshi arrived.  Everybody was there—­Mr. Belcovitch pressing coats with hot irons; Fanny shaking the room with her heavy machine; Pesach Weingott cutting a piece of chalk-marked cloth; Mrs. Belcovitch carefully pouring out tablespoonfuls of medicine.  There were even some outside “hands,” work being unusually plentiful, as from the manifestos of Simon Wolf, the labor-leader, the slop manufacturers anticipated a strike.

Sustained by their presence, Shosshi felt a bold and gallant wooer.  He determined that this time he would not go without having addressed at least one remark to the object of his affections.  Grinning amiably at the company generally, by way of salutation, he made straight for Becky’s corner.  The terribly fine lady snorted at the sight of him, divining that she had been out-manoeuvred.  Belcovitch surveyed the situation out of the corners of his eyes, not pausing a moment in his task.

“Nu, how goes it, Becky?” Shosshi murmured.

Becky said, “All right, how are you?”

“God be thanked, I have nothing to complain of,” said Shosshi, encouraged by the warmth of his welcome.  “My eyes are rather weak, still, though much better than last year.”

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.”

“Oh, no, she says she’s much worse than you,” Shosshi blurted out, turning round to face his future mother-in-law.

“Oh, indeed!” said Chayah angrily.  “My enemies shall have my maladies!  If your mother had my health, she would be lying in bed with it.  But I go about in a sick condition.  I can hardly crawl around.  Look at my legs—­has your mother got such legs?  One a thick one and one a thin one.”

Shosshi grew scarlet; he felt he had blundered.  It was the first real shadow on his courtship—­perhaps the little rift within the lute.  He turned back to Becky for sympathy.  There was no Becky.  She had taken advantage of the conversation to slip away.  He found her again in a moment though, at the other end of the room.  She was seated before a machine.  He crossed the room boldly and bent over her.

“Don’t you feel cold, working?”

Br-r-r-r-r-r-h!

It was the machine turning.  Becky had set the treadle going madly and was pushing a piece of cloth under the needle.  When she paused, Shosshi said: 

“Have you heard Reb Shemuel preach?  He told a very amusing allegory last—­”

Br-r-r-r-r-r-r-h!

Undaunted, Shosshi recounted the amusing allegory at length, and as the noise of her machine prevented Becky hearing a word she found his conversation endurable.  After several more monologues, accompanied on the machine by Becky, Shosshi took his departure in high feather, promising to bring up specimens of his handiwork for her edification.