"Take it!" said Esther. And threw the coin passionately to the floor, where it rolled about pleasantly for a terrible minute of human silence. The smoke-wreathed card-players looked up at last.
"Eh? Eh? What's this, my little girl." said Michael genially. "What makes you so naughty?"
A hysterical fit of sobbing was the only reply. In the bitterness of that moment Esther hated the whole world.
"Don't cry like that! Don't!" said David Brandon kindly.
Esther, her little shoulders heaving convulsively, put her hand on the latch.
"What's the matter with the girl, mother?" said Michael.
"She's _meshugga_!" said Malka. "Raving mad!" Her face was white and she spoke as if in self-defence. "She's such a _Schlemihl_ that she lost her purse in the Lane, and I found her gushing with the eyes, and I let her carry home my fish and gave her a shilling and a peppermint, and thou seest how she turns on me, thou seest."
"Poor little thing!" said David impulsively. "Here, come here, my child."'
"Come here," he repeated gently. "See, I will make up the loss to you. Take the pool. I've just won it, so I shan't miss it."
Esther sobbed louder, but she did not move.
David rose, emptied the heap of silver into his palm, walked over to Esther, and pushed it into her pocket. Michael got up and added half a crown to it, and the other two men followed suit. Then David opened the door, put her outside gently and said: "There! Run away, my little dear, and be more careful of pickpockets."
All this while Malka had stood frozen to the stony dignity of a dingy terra-cotta statue. But ere the door could close again on the child, she darted forward and seized her by the collar of her frock.
Half hypnotized by the irate swarthy face, Esther made no resistance while Malka rifled her pocket less dexterously than the first operator.
"Seventeen and sixpence," she announced in terrible tones. "How darest thou take all this money from strangers, and perfect strangers? Do my children think to shame me before my own relative?" And throwing the money violently into the plate she took out a gold coin and pressed it into the bewildered child's hand.
"There!" she shouted. "Hold that tight! It is a sovereign. And if ever I catch thee taking money from any one in this house but thy mother's own cousin, I'll wash my hands of thee for ever. Go now! Go on! I can't afford any more, so it's useless waiting. Good-night, and tell thy father I wish him a happy _Yontov_, and I hope he'll lose no more children."