Both knew by bitter experience that their mother considered herself a connoisseur in the purchase of fish.

“And how much do you think I gave for them?” went on Malka triumphantly.

“Two pounds ten,” said Milly.

Malka’s eyes twinkled and she shook her head.

“Two pounds fifteen,” said Leah, with the air of hitting it now.

Still Malka shook her head.

“Here, Michael, what do you think I gave for all this lot?”

“Diamonds!” said Michael.

“Be not a fool, Michael,” said Malka sternly.  “Look here a minute.”

“Eh?  Oh!” said Michael looking up from his cards.  “Don’t bother, mother.  My game!”

“Michael!” thundered Malka.  “Will you look at this fish?  How much do you think I gave for this splendid lot? here, look at ’em, alive yet.”

“H’m—­Ha!” said Michael, taking his complex corkscrew combination out of his pocket and putting it back again.  “Three guineas?”

“Three guineas!” laughed Malka, in good-humored scorn.  “Lucky I don’t let you do my marketing.”

“Yes, he’d be a nice fishy customer!” said Sam Levine with a guffaw.

“Ephraim, what think you I got this fish for?  Cheap now, you know?”

“I don’t know, mother,” replied the twinkling-eyed Pole obediently.  “Three pounds, perhaps, if you got it cheap.”

Samuel and David duly appealed to, reduced the amount to two pounds five and two pounds respectively.  Then, having got everybody’s attention fixed upon her, she exclaimed: 

“Thirty shillings!”

She could not resist nibbling off the five shillings.  Everybody drew a long breath.

“Tu!  Tu!” they ejaculated in chorus.  “What a Metsiah!”

“Sam,” said Ephraim immediately afterwards, “You turned up the ace.”

Milly and Leah went back into the kitchen.

It was rather too quick a relapse into the common things of life and made Malka suspect the admiration was but superficial.

She turned, with a spice of ill-humor, and saw Esther still standing timidly behind her.  Her face flushed for she knew the child had overheard her in a lie.

“What art thou waiting about for?” she said roughly in Yiddish.  “Na! there’s a peppermint.”

“I thought you might want me for something else,” said Esther, blushing but accepting the peppermint for Ikey.  “And I—­I—­”

“Well, speak up!  I won’t bite thee.”  Malka continued to talk in Yiddish though the child answered her in English.  “I—­I—­nothing,” said Esther, turning away.

“Here, turn thy face round, child,” said Malka, putting her hand on the girl’s forcibly averted head.  “Be not so sullen, thy mother was like that, she’d want to bite my head off if I hinted thy father was not the man for her, and then she’d schmull and sulk for a week after.  Thank God, we have no one like that in this house.  I couldn’t live for a day with people with such nasty tempers.  Her temper worried her into the grave, though, if thy father had not brought his mother over from Poland my poor cousin might have carried home my fish to-night instead of thee.  Poor Gittel, peace be upon him!  Come tell me what ails thee, or thy dead mother will be cross with thee.”