The Shalotten _Shammos_ explained briefly what he had done.
"May thy strength increase!" said the _Maggid_ in the Hebrew formula of gratitude.
"Nay, thine is more important," replied the Shalotten _Shammos_ with hilarious heartiness, and he proceeded to read the letter as they walked along together, giant and doubled-up wizard.
"But I haven't got a wife and six children," said the _Maggid_, for whom one or two phrases stood out intelligible. "My wife is dead and I never was blessed with a _Kaddish_."
"It sounds better so," said the Shalotten _Shammos_ authoritatively. "Preachers are expected to have heavy families dependent upon them. It would sound lies if I told the truth."
This was an argument after the _Maggid's_ own heart, but it did not quite convince him.
"But they will send and make inquiries," he murmured.
"Then your family are in Poland; you send your money over there."
"That is true," said the _Maggid_ feebly. "But still it likes me not."
"You leave it to me," said the Shalotten _Shammos_ impressively. "A shamefaced man cannot learn, and a passionate man cannot teach. So said Hillel. When you are in the pulpit I listen to you; when I have my pen in hand, do you listen to me. As the proverb says, if I were a Rabbi the town would burn. But if you were a scribe the letter would burn. I don't pretend to be a _Maggid_, don't you set up to be a letter writer."
"Hear, O Israel!" cried the Shalotten _Shammos_, spreading out his palms impatiently. "Haven't I written letters for twenty years?"
The _Maggid_ was silenced. He walked on brooding. "And what is this place, Burnmud, I ask to go to?" he inquired.
"Bournemouth," corrected the other. "It is a place on the South coast where all the most aristocratic consumptives go."
"But it must be very dear," said the poor _Maggid_, affrighted.
"Dear? Of course it's dear," said the Shalotten _Shammos_ pompously. "But shall we consider expense where your health is concerned?"
The _Maggid_ felt so grateful he was almost ashamed to ask whether he could eat _kosher_ there, but the Shalotten _Shammos_, who had the air of a tall encyclopaedia, set his soul at rest on all points.
The day of Ebenezer Sugarman's _Bar-mitzvah_ duly arrived. All his sins would henceforth be on his own head and everybody rejoiced. By the Friday evening so many presents had arrived--four breastpins, two rings, six pocket-knives, three sets of _Machzorim_ or Festival Prayer-books, and the like--that his father barred up the door very carefully and in the middle of the night, hearing a mouse scampering across the floor, woke up in a cold sweat and threw open the bedroom window and cried "Ho! Buglers!" But the "Buglers" made no sign of being scared, everything was still and nothing purloined, so Jonathan took a reprimand from his disturbed wife and curled himself up again in bed.