Book 2. The Grandchildren Of The Ghetto - Chapter 3. "The Flag Of Judah"

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_ BOOK II. THE GRANDCHILDREN OF THE GHETTO
CHAPTER III. "THE FLAG OF JUDAH"

The call to edit the new Jewish paper seemed to Raphael the voice of Providence. It came just when he was hesitating about his future, divided between the attractions of the ministry, pure Hebrew scholarship and philanthropy. The idea of a paper destroyed these conflicting claims by comprehending them all. A paper would be at once a pulpit, a medium for organizing effective human service, and an incentive to serious study in the preparation of scholarly articles.

The paper was to be the property of the Co-operative Kosher Society, an association originally founded to supply unimpeachable Passover cakes. It was suspected by the pious that there was a taint of heresy in the flour used by the ordinary bakers, and it was remarked that the Rabbinate itself imported its _Matzoth_ from abroad. Successful in its first object, the Co-operative Kosher Society extended its operations to more perennial commodities, and sought to save Judaism from dubious cheese and butter, as well as to provide public baths for women in accordance with the precepts of Leviticus. But these ideals were not so easy to achieve, and so gradually the idea of a paper to preach them to a godless age formed itself. The members of the Society met in Aaron Schlesinger's back office to consider them. Schlesinger was a cigar merchant, and the discussions of the Society were invariably obscured by gratuitous smoke Schlesinger's junior partner, Lewis De Haan, who also had a separate business as a surveyor, was the soul of the Society, and talked a great deal. He was a stalwart old man, with a fine imagination and figure, boundless optimism, a big biceps, a long venerable white beard, a keen sense of humor, and a versatility which enabled him to turn from the price of real estate to the elucidation of a Talmudical difficulty, and from the consignment of cigars to the organization of apostolic movements. Among the leading spirits were our old friends, Karlkammer the red-haired zealot, Sugarman the _Shadchan_, and Guedalyah the greengrocer, together with Gradkoski the scholar, fancy goods merchant and man of the world. A furniture-dealer, who was always failing, was also an important personage, while Ebenezer Sugarman, a young man who had once translated a romance from the Dutch, acted as secretary. Melchitsedek Pinchas invariably turned up at the meetings and smoked Schlesinger's cigars. He was not a member; he had not qualified himself by taking ten pound shares (far from fully paid up), but nobody liked to eject him, and no hint less strong than a physical would have moved the poet.

All the members of the Council of the Co-operative Kosher Society spoke English volubly and more or less grammatically, but none had sufficient confidence in the others to propose one of them for editor, though it is possible that none would have shrunk from having a shot. Diffidence is not a mark of the Jew. The claims of Ebenezer Sugarman and of Melchitsedek Pinchas were put forth most vehemently by Ebenezer and Melchitsedek respectively, and their mutual accusations of incompetence enlivened Mr. Schlesinger's back office.

"He ain't able to spell the commonest English words," said Ebenezer, with a contemptuous guffaw that sounded like the croak of a raven.

The young litterateur, the sumptuousness of whose _Barmitzvah_-party was still a memory with his father, had lank black hair, with a long nose that supported blue spectacles.

"What does he know of the Holy Tongue?" croaked Melchitsedek witheringly, adding in a confidential whisper to the cigar merchant: "I and you, Schlesinger, are the only two men in England who can write the Holy Tongue grammatically."

The little poet was as insinutive and volcanic (by turns) as ever. His beard was, however, better trimmed and his complexion healthier, and he looked younger than ten years ago. His clothes were quite spruce. For several years he had travelled about the Continent, mainly at Raphael's expense. He said his ideas came better in touring and at a distance from the unappreciative English Jewry. It was a pity, for with his linguistic genius his English would have been immaculate by this time. As it was, there was a considerable improvement in his writing, if not so much in his accent.

"What do I know of the Holy Tongue!" repeated Ebenezer scornfully. "Hold yours!"

The Committee laughed, but Schlesinger, who was a serious man, said, "Business, gentlemen, business."

"Come, then! I'll challenge you to translate a page of _Metatoron's Flames_," said Pinchas, skipping about the office like a sprightly flea. "You know no more than the Reverend Joseph Strelitski vith his vite tie and his princely income."

De Haan seized the poet by the collar, swung him off his feet and tucked him up in the coal-scuttle.

"Yah!" croaked Ebenezer. "Here's a fine editor. Ho! Ho! Ho!"

"We cannot have either of them. It's the only way to keep them quiet," said the furniture-dealer who was always failing.

Ebenezer's face fell and his voice rose.

"I don't see why I should be sacrificed to _'im_. There ain't a man in England who can write English better than me. Why, everybody says so. Look at the success of my book, _The Old Burgomaster_, the best Dutch novel ever written. The _St. Pancras Press_ said it reminded them of Lord Lytton, it did indeed. I can show you the paper. I can give you one each if you like. And then it ain't as if I didn't know 'Ebrew, too. Even if I was in doubt about anything, I could always go to my father. You give me this paper to manage and I'll make your fortunes for you in a twelvemonth; I will as sure as I stand here."

Pinchas had made spluttering interruptions as frequently as he could in resistance of De Haan's brawny, hairy hand which was pressed against his nose and mouth to keep him down in the coal-scuttle, but now he exploded with a force that shook off the hand like a bottle of soda water expelling its cork.

"You Man-of-the-Earth," he cried, sitting up in the coal-scuttle. "You are not even orthodox. Here, my dear gentlemen, is the very position created by Heaven for me--in this disgraceful country where genius starves. Here at last you have the opportunity of covering yourselves vid eternal glory. Have I not given you the idea of starting this paper? And vas I not born to be a Redacteur, a Editor, as you call it? Into the paper I vill pour all the fires of my song--"

"Yes, burn it up," croaked Ebenezer.

"I vill lead the Freethinkers and the Reformers back into the fold. I vill be Elijah and my vings shall be quill pens. I vill save Judaism." He started up, swelling, but De Haan caught him by his waistcoat and readjusted him in the coal-scuttle.

"Here, take another cigar, Pinchas," he said, passing Schlesinger's private box, as if with a twinge of remorse for his treatment of one he admired as a poet though he could not take him seriously as a man.

The discussion proceeded; the furniture-dealer's counsel was followed; it was definitely decided to let the two candidates neutralize each other.

"Vat vill you give me, if I find you a Redacteur?" suddenly asked Pinchas. "I give up my editorial seat--"

"Editorial coal-scuttle," growled Ebenezer.

"Pooh! I find you a first-class Redacteur who vill not want a big salary; perhaps he vill do it for nothing. How much commission vill you give me?"

"Ten shillings on every pound if he does not want a big salary," said De Haan instantly, "and twelve and sixpence on every pound if he does it for nothing."

And Pinchas, who was easily bamboozled when finance became complex, went out to find Raphael.

Thus at the next meeting the poet produced Raphael in triumph, and Gradkoski, who loved a reputation for sagacity, turned a little green with disgust at his own forgetfulness. Gradkoski was among those founders of the Holy Land League with whom Raphael had kept up relations, and he could not deny that the young enthusiast was the ideal man for the post. De Haan, who was busy directing the clerks to write out ten thousand wrappers for the first number, and who had never heard of Raphael before, held a whispered confabulation with Gradkoski and Schlesinger and in a few moments Raphael was rescued from obscurity and appointed to the editorship of the _Flag of Judah_ at a salary of nothing a year. De Haan immediately conceived a vast contemptuous admiration of the man.

"You von't forget me," whispered Pinchas, buttonholing the editor at the first opportunity, and placing his forefinger insinuatingly alongside his nose. "You vill remember that I expect a commission on your salary."

Raphael smiled good-naturedly and, turning to De Haan, said: "But do you think there is any hope of a circulation?"

"A circulation, sir, a circulation!" repeated De Haan. "Why, we shall not be able to print fast enough. There are seventy-thousand orthodox Jews in London alone."

"And besides," added Gradkoski, in a corroboration strongly like a contradiction, "we shall not have to rely on the circulation. Newspapers depend on their advertisements."

"Do they?" said Raphael, helplessly.

"Of course," said Gradkoski with his air of worldly wisdom, "And don't you see, being a religious paper we are bound to get all the communal advertisements. Why, we get the Co-operative Kosher Society to start with."

"Yes, but we ain't: going to pay for that,"' said Sugarman the _Shadchan_.

"That doesn't matter," said De Haan. "It'll look well--we can fill up a whole page with it. You know what Jews are--they won't ask 'is this paper wanted?' they'll balance it in their hand, as if weighing up the value of the advertisements, and ask 'does it pay?' But it _will_ pay, it must pay; with you at the head of it, Mr. Leon, a man whose fame and piety are known and respected wherever a _Mezuzah_ adorns a door-post, a man who is in sympathy with the East End, and has the ear of the West, a man who will preach the purest Judaism in the best English, with such a man at the head of it, we shall be able to ask bigger prices for advertisements than the existing Jewish papers."

Raphael left the office in a transport of enthusiasm, full of Messianic emotions. At the next meeting he announced that he was afraid he could not undertake the charge of the paper. Amid universal consternation, tempered by the exultation of Ebenezer, he explained that he had been thinking it over and did not see how it could be done. He said he had been carefully studying the existing communal organs, and saw that they dealt with many matters of which he knew nothing; whilst he might be competent to form the taste of the community in religious and literary matters, it appeared that the community was chiefly excited about elections and charities. "Moreover," said he, "I noticed that it is expected of these papers to publish obituaries of communal celebrities, for whose biographies no adequate materials are anywhere extant. It would scarcely be decent to obtrude upon the sacred grief of the bereaved relatives with a request for particulars."

"Oh, that's all right," laughed De Haan. "I'm sure _my_ wife would be glad to give you any information."

"Of course, of course," said Gradkoski, soothingly. "You will get the obituaries sent in of themselves by the relatives."

Raphael's brow expressed surprise and incredulity.

"And besides, we are not going to crack up the same people as the other papers," said De Haan; "otherwise we should not supply a want. We must dole out our praise and blame quite differently, and we must be very scrupulous to give only a little praise so that it shall be valued the more." He stroked his white, beard tranquilly.

"But how about meetings?" urged Raphael. "I find that sometimes two take place at once. I can go to one, but I can't be at both."

"Oh, that will be all right," said De Haan airily. "We will leave out one and people will think it is unimportant. We are bringing out a paper for our own ends, not to report the speeches of busybodies."

Raphael was already exhibiting a conscientiousness which must be nipped in the bud. Seeing him silenced, Ebenezer burst forth anxiously:

"But Mr. Leon is right. There must be a sub-editor."

"Certainly there must be a sub-editor," cried Pinchas eagerly.

"Very well, then," said De Haan, struck with a sudden thought. "It is true Mr. Leon cannot do all the work. I know a young fellow who'll be just the very thing. He'll come for a pound a week."

"But I'll come for a pound a week," said Ebenezer.

"Yes, but you won't get it," said Schlesinger impatiently.

"_Sha_, Ebenezer," said old Sugarman imperiously.

De Haan thereupon hunted up a young gentleman, who dwelt in his mind as "Little Sampson," and straightway secured him at the price named. He was a lively young Bohemian born in Australia, who had served an apprenticeship on the Anglo-Jewish press, worked his way up into the larger journalistic world without, and was now engaged in organizing a comic-opera touring company, and in drifting back again into Jewish journalism. This young gentleman, who always wore long curling locks, an eye-glass and a romantic cloak which covered a multitude of shabbinesses, fully allayed Raphael's fears as to the difficulties of editorship.

"Obituaries!" he said scornfully. "You rely on me for that! The people who are worth chronicling are sure to have lived in the back numbers of our contemporaries, and I can always hunt them up in the Museum. As for the people who are not, their families will send them in, and your only trouble will be to conciliate the families of those you ignore."

"But about all those meetings?" said Raphael.

"I'll go to some," said the sub-editor good-naturedly, "whenever they don't interfere with the rehearsals of my opera. You know of course I am bringing out a comic-opera, composed by myself, some lovely tunes in it; one goes like this: Ta ra ra ta, ta dee dum dee--that'll knock 'em. Well, as I was saying, I'll help you as much as I can find time for. You rely on me for that."

"Yes," said poor Raphael with a sickly smile, "but suppose neither of us goes to some important meeting."

"No harm done. God bless you, I know the styles of all our chief speakers--ahem--ha!--pauperization of the East End, ha!--I would emphatically say that this scheme--ahem!--his lordship's untiring zeal for hum!--the welfare of--and so on. Ta dee dum da, ta, ra, rum dee. They always send on the agenda beforehand. That's all I want, and I'll lay you twenty to one I'll turn out as good a report as any of our rivals. You rely on me for _that_! I know exactly how debates go. At the worst I can always swop with another reporter--a prize distribution for an obituary, or a funeral for a concert."

"And do you really think we two between us can fill up the paper every week?" said Raphael doubtfully.

Little Sampson broke into a shriek of laughter, dropped his eyeglass and collapsed helplessly into the coal-scuttle. The Committeemen looked up from their confabulations in astonishment.

"Fill up the paper! Ho! Ho! Ho!" roared little Sampson, still doubled up. "Evidently _you've_ never had anything to do with papers. Why, the reports of London and provincial sermons alone would fill three papers a week."

"Yes, but how are we to get these reports, especially from the provinces?"

"How? Ho! Ho! Ho!" And for some time little Sampson was physically incapable of speech. "Don't you know," he gasped, "that the ministers always send up their own sermons, pages upon pages of foolscap?"

"Indeed?" murmured Raphael.

"What, haven't you noticed all Jewish sermons are eloquent?".

"They write that themselves?"

"Of course; sometimes they put 'able,' and sometimes 'learned,' but, as a rule, they prefer to be 'eloquent.' The run on that epithet is tremendous. Ta dee dum da. In holiday seasons they are also very fond of 'enthralling the audience,' and of 'melting them to tears,' but this is chiefly during the Ten Days of Repentance, or when a boy is _Barmitzvah_. Then, think of the people who send in accounts of the oranges they gave away to distressed widows, or of the prizes won by their children at fourth-rate schools, or of the silver pointers they present to the synagogue. Whenever a reader sends a letter to an evening paper, he will want you to quote it; and, if he writes a paragraph in the obscurest leaflet, he will want you to note it as 'Literary Intelligence.' Why, my dear fellow, your chief task will be to cut down. Ta, ra, ra, ta! Any Jewish paper could be entirely supported by voluntary contributions--as, for the matter of that, could any newspaper in the world." He got up and shook the coal-dust languidly from his cloak.

"Besides, we shall all be helping you with articles," said De Haan, encouragingly.

"Yes, we shall all be helping you," said Ebenezer.

"I vill give you from the Pierian spring--bucketsful," said Pinchas in a flush of generosity.

"Thank you, I shall be much obliged," said Raphael, heartily, "for I don't quite see the use of a paper filled up as Mr. Sampson suggests." He flung his arms out and drew them in again. It was a way he had when in earnest. "Then, I should like to have some foreign news. Where's that to come from?"

"You rely on me for _that_," said little Sampson, cheerfully. "I will write at once to all the chief Jewish papers in the world, French, German, Dutch, Italian, Hebrew, and American, asking them to exchange with us. There is never any dearth of foreign news. I translate a thing from the Italian _Vessillo Israelitico_, and the _Israelitische Nieuwsbode_ copies it from us; _Der Israelit_ then translates it into German, whence it gets into Hebrew, in _Hamagid_, thence into _L'Univers Israelite_, of Paris, and thence into the _American Hebrew_. When I see it in American, not having to translate it, it strikes me as fresh, and so I transfer it bodily to our columns, whence it gets translated into Italian, and so the merry-go-round goes eternally on. Ta dee rum day. You rely on me for your foreign news. Why, I can get you foreign telegrams if you'll only allow me to stick 'Trieste, December 21,' or things of that sort at the top. Ti, tum, tee ti." He went on humming a sprightly air, then, suddenly interrupting himself, he said, "but have you got an advertisement canvasser, Mr. De Haan?"

"No, not yet," said De Haan, turning around. The committee had resolved itself into animated groups, dotted about the office, each group marked by a smoke-drift. The clerks were still writing the ten thousand wrappers, swearing inaudibly.

"Well, when are you going to get him?"

"Oh, we shall have advertisements rolling in of themselves," said De Haan, with a magnificent sweep of the arm. "And we shall all assist in that department! Help yourself to another cigar, Sampson." And he passed Schlesinger's box. Raphael and Karlkammer were the only two men in the room not smoking cigars--Raphael, because he preferred his pipe, and Karlkammer for some more mystic reason.

"We must not ignore Cabalah," the zealot's voice was heard to observe.

"You can't get advertisements by Cabalah," drily interrupted Guedalyah, the greengrocer, a practical man, as everybody knew.

"No, indeed," protested Sampson. "The advertisement canvasser is a more important man than the editor."

Ebenezer pricked up his ears.

"I thought _you_ undertook to do some canvassing for your money," said De Haan.

"So I will, so I will; rely on me for that. I shouldn't be surprised if I get the capitalists who are backing up my opera to give you the advertisements of the tour, and I'll do all I can in my spare time. But I feel sure you'll want another man--only, you must pay him well and give him a good commission. It'll pay best in the long run to have a good man, there are so many seedy duffers about," said little Sampson, drawing his faded cloak loftily around him. "You want an eloquent, persuasive man, with a gift of the gab--"

"Didn't I tell you so?" interrupted Pinchas, putting his finger to his nose. "I vill go to the advertisers and speak burning words to them. I vill--"

"Garn! They'd kick you out!" croaked Ebenezer. "They'll only listen to an Englishman." His coarse-featured face glistened with spite.

"My Ebenezer has a good appearance," said old Sugarman, "and his English is fine, and dat is half de battle."

Schlesinger, appealed to, intimated that Ebenezer might try, but that they could not well spare him any percentage at the start. After much haggling, Ebenezer consented to waive his commission, if the committee would consent to allow an original tale of his to appear in the paper.

The stipulation having been agreed to, he capered joyously about the office and winked periodically at Pinchas from behind the battery of his blue spectacles. The poet was, however, rapt in a discussion as to the best printer. The Committee were for having Gluck, who had done odd jobs for most of them, but Pinchas launched into a narrative of how, when he edited a great organ in Buda-Pesth, he had effected vast economies by starting a little printing-office of his own in connection with the paper.

"You vill set up a little establishment," he said. "I vill manage it for a few pounds a veek. Then I vill not only print your paper, I vill get you large profits from extra printing. Vith a man of great business talent at the head of it--"

De Haan made a threatening movement, and Pinchas edged away from the proximity of the coal-scuttle.

"Gluck's our printer!" said De Haan peremptorily. "He has Hebrew type. We shall want a lot of that. We must have a lot of Hebrew quotations--not spell Hebrew words in English like the other papers. And the Hebrew date must come before the English. The public must see at once that our principles are superior. Besides, Gluck's a Jew, which will save us from the danger of having any of the printing done on Saturdays."

"But shan't we want a publisher?" asked Sampson.

"That's vat I say," cried Pinchas. "If I set up this office, I can be your publisher too. Ve must do things business-like."

"Nonsense, nonsense! We are our own publishers," said De Haan. "Our clerks will send out the invoices and the subscription copies, and an extra office-boy can sell the papers across the counter."

Sampson smiled in his sleeve.

"All right. That will do--for the first number," he said cordially. "Ta ra ra ta."

"Now then, Mr. Leon, everything is settled," said De Haan, stroking his beard briskly. "I think I'll ask you to help us to draw up the posters. We shall cover all London, sir, all London."

"But wouldn't that be wasting money?" said Raphael.

"Oh, we're going to do the thing properly. I don't believe in meanness."

"It'll be enough if we cover the East End," said Schlesinger, drily.

"Quite so. The East End _is_ London as far as we're concerned," said De Haan readily.

Raphael took the pen and the paper which De Haan tendered him and wrote _The Flag of Judah_, the title having been fixed at their first interview.

"The only orthodox paper!" dictated De Haan. "Largest circulation of any Jewish paper in the world!"

"No, how can we say that?" said Raphael, pausing.

"No, of course not," said De Haan. "I was thinking of the subsequent posters. Look out for the first number--on Friday, January 1st. The best Jewish writers! The truest Jewish teachings! Latest Jewish news and finest Jewish stories. Every Friday. Twopence."

"Twopence?" echoed Raphael, looking up. "I thought you wanted to appeal to the masses. I should say it must be a penny."

"It _will_ be a penny," said De Haan oracularly.

"We have thought it all over," interposed Gradkoski. "The first number will be bought up out of curiosity, whether at a penny or at twopence. The second will go almost as well, for people will be anxious to see how it compares with the first. In that number we shall announce that owing to the enormous success we have been able to reduce it to a penny; meantime we make all the extra pennies."

"I see," said Raphael dubiously.

"We must have _Chochma_" said De Haan. "Our sages recommend that."

Raphael still had his doubts, but he had also a painful sense of his lack of the "practical wisdom" recommended by the sages cited. He thought these men were probably in the right. Even religion could not be pushed on the masses without business methods, and so long as they were in earnest about the doctrines to be preached, he could even feel a dim admiration for their superior shrewdness in executing a task in which he himself would have hopelessly broken down. Raphael's mind was large; and larger by being conscious of its cloistral limitations. And the men were in earnest; not even their most intimate friends could call this into question.

"We are going to save London," De Haan put it in one of his dithyrambic moments. "Orthodoxy has too long been voiceless, and yet it is five-sixths of Judaea. A small minority has had all the say. We must redress the balance. We must plead the cause of the People against the Few."

Raphael's breast throbbed with similar hopes. His Messianic emotions resurged. Sugarman's solicitous request that he should buy a Hamburg Lottery Ticket scarcely penetrated his consciousness. Carrying the copy of the poster, he accompanied De Haan to Gluck's. It was a small shop in a back street with jargon-papers and hand-bills in the window and a pervasive heavy oleaginous odor. A hand-press occupied the centre of the interior, the back of which was partitioned of and marked "Private." Gluck came forward, grinning welcome. He wore an unkempt beard and a dusky apron.

"Can you undertake to print an eight-page paper?" inquired De Haan.

"If I can print at all, I can print anything," responded Gluck reproachfully. "How many shall you want?"

"It's the orthodox paper we've been planning so long," said De Haan evasively.

Gluck nodded his head.

"There are seventy thousand orthodox Jews in London alone," said De Haan, with rotund enunciation. "So you see what you may have to print. It'll be worth your while to do it extra cheap."

Gluck agreed readily, naming a low figure. After half an hour's discussion it was reduced by ten per cent.

"Good-bye, then," said De Haan. "So let it stand. We shall start with a thousand copies of the first number, but where we shall end, the Holy One, blessed be He, alone knows. I will now leave you and the editor to talk over the rest. To-day's Monday. We must have the first number out by Friday week. Can you do that, Mr. Leon?"

"Oh, that will be ample," said Raphael, shooting out his arms.

He did not remain of that opinion. Never had he gone through such an awful, anxious time, not even in his preparations for the stiffest exams. He worked sixteen hours a day at the paper. The only evening he allowed himself off was when he dined with Mrs. Henry Goldsmith and met Esther. First numbers invariably take twice as long to produce as second numbers, even in the best regulated establishments. All sorts of mysterious sticks and leads, and fonts and forms, are found wanting at the eleventh hour. As a substitute for gray hair-dye there is nothing in the market to compete with the production of first numbers. But in Gluck's establishment, these difficulties were multiplied by a hundred. Gluck spent a great deal of time in going round the corner to get something from a brother printer. It took an enormous time to get a proof of any article out of Gluck.

"My men are so careful," Gluck explained. "They don't like to pass anything till it's free from typos."

The men must have been highly disappointed, for the proofs were invariably returned bristling with corrections and having a highly hieroglyphic appearance. Then Gluck would go in and slang his men. He kept them behind the partition painted "Private."

The fatal Friday drew nearer and nearer. By Thursday not a single page had been made up. Still Gluck pointed out that there were only eight, and the day was long. Raphael had not the least idea in the world how to make up a paper, but about eleven little Sampson kindly strolled into Gluck's, and explained to his editor his own method of pasting the proofs on sheets of paper of the size of the pages. He even made up one page himself to a blithe vocal accompaniment. When the busy composer and acting-manager hurried off to conduct a rehearsal, Raphael expressed his gratitude warmly. The hours flew; the paper evolved as by geologic stages. As the fateful day wore on, Gluck was scarcely visible for a moment. Raphael was left alone eating his heart out in the shop, and solacing himself with huge whiffs of smoke. At immense intervals Gluck appeared from behind the partition bearing a page or a galley slip. He said his men could not be trusted to do their work unless he was present. Raphael replied that he had not seen the compositors come through the shop to get their dinners, and he hoped Gluck would not find it necessary to cut off their meal-times. Gluck reassured him on this point; he said his men were so loyal that they preferred to bring their food with them rather than have the paper delayed. Later on he casually mentioned that there was a back entrance. He would not allow Raphael to talk to his workmen personally, arguing that it spoiled their discipline. By eleven o'clock at night seven pages had been pulled and corrected: but the eighth page was not forthcoming. The _Flag_ had to be machined, dried, folded, and a number of copies put into wrappers and posted by three in the morning. The situation looked desperate. At a quarter to twelve, Gluck explained that a column of matter already set up had been "pied" by a careless compositor. It happened to be the column containing the latest news and Raphael had not even seen a proof of it. Still, Gluck conjured him not to trouble further: he would give his reader strict injunctions not to miss the slightest error. Raphael had already seen and passed the first column of this page, let him leave it to Gluck to attend to this second column; all would be well without his remaining later, and he would receive a copy of the _Flag_ by the first post. The poor editor, whose head was splitting, weakly yielded; he just caught the midnight train to the West End and he went to bed feeling happy and hopeful.

At seven o'clock the next morning the whole Leon household was roused by a thunderous double rat-tat at the door. Addie was even heard to scream. A housemaid knocked at Raphael's door and pushed a telegram under it. Raphael jumped out of bed and read: "Third of column more matter wanted. Come at once. Gluck."

"How can that be?" he asked himself in consternation. "If the latest news made a column when it was first set up before the accident, how can it make less now?"

He dashed up to Gluck's office in a hansom and put the conundrum to him.

"You see we had no time to distribute the 'pie,' and we had no more type of that kind, so we had to reset it smaller," answered Gluck glibly. His eyes were blood-shot, his face was haggard. The door of the private compartment stood open.

"Your men are not come yet, I suppose," said Raphael.

"No," said Gluck. "They didn't go away till two, poor fellows. Is that the copy?" he asked, as Raphael handed him a couple of slips he had distractedly scribbled in the cab under the heading of "Talmudic Tales." "Thank you, it's just about the size. I shall have to set it myself."

"But won't we be terribly late?" said poor Raphael.

"We shall be out to-day," responded Gluck cheerfully. "We shall be in time for the Sabbath, and that's the important thing. Don't you see they're half-printed already?" He indicated a huge pile of sheets. Raphael examined them with beating heart. "We've only got to print 'em on the other side and the thing's done," said Gluck.

"Where are your machines?"

"There," said Gluck, pointing.

"That hand-press!" cried Raphael, astonished. "Do you mean to say you print them all with your own hand?"

"Why not?" said the dauntless Gluck. "I shall wrap them up for the post, too." And he shut himself up with the last of the "copy."

Raphael having exhausted his interest in the half-paper, fell to striding about the little shop, when who should come in but Pinchas, smoking a cigar of the Schlesinger brand.

"Ah, my Prince of Redacteurs," said Pinchas, darting at Raphael's hand and kissing it. "Did I not say you vould produce the finest paper in the kingdom? But vy have I not my copy by post? You must not listen to Ebenezer ven he says I must not be on the free list, the blackguard."

Raphael explained to the incredulous poet that Ebenezer had not said anything of the kind. Suddenly Pinchas's eye caught sight of the sheets. He swooped down upon them like a hawk. Then he uttered a shriek of grief.

"Vere's my poem, my great poesie?"

Raphael looked embarrassed.

"This is only half the paper," he said evasively.

"Ha, then it vill appear in the other half, _hein_?" he said with hope tempered by a terrible suspicion.

"N--n--o," stammered Raphael timidly.

"No?" shrieked Pinchas.

"You see--the--fact is, it wouldn't scan. Your Hebrew poetry is perfect, but English poetry is made rather differently and I've been too busy to correct it."

"But it is exactly like Lord Byron's!" shrieked Pinchas. "Mein Gott! All night I lie avake--vaiting for the post. At eight o'clock the post comes--but _The Flag of Judah_ she vaves not! I rush round here--and now my beautiful poem vill not appear." He seized the sheet again, then cried fiercely: "You have a tale, 'The Waters of Babylon,' by Ebenezer the fool-boy, but my poesie have you not. _Gott in Himmel_!" He tore the sheet frantically across and rushed from the shop. In five minutes he reappeared. Raphael was absorbed in reading the last proof. Pinchas plucked timidly at his coat-tails.

"You vill put it in next veek?" he said winningly.

"I dare say," said Raphael gently.

"Ah, promise me. I vill love you like a brother, I vill be grateful to you for ever and ever. I vill never ask another favor of you in all my life. Ve are already like brothers--_hein_? I and you, the only two men--"

"Yes, yes," interrupted Raphael, "it shall appear next week."

"God bless you!" said Pinchas, kissing Raphael's coat-tails passionately and rushing without.

Looking up accidentally some minutes afterwards, Raphael was astonished to see the poet's carneying head thrust through the half-open door with a finger laid insinuatingly on the side of the nose. The head was fixed there as if petrified, waiting to catch the editor's eye.

The first number of _The Flag of Judah_ appeared early in the afternoon. _

Read next: Book 2. The Grandchildren Of The Ghetto: Chapter 4. The Troubles Of An Editor

Read previous: Book 2. The Grandchildren Of The Ghetto: Chapter 2. Raphael Leon

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