'It is most kind of you to call,' said Simeon Samuels as he wheeled the parlour armchair towards his reverend guest. 'My wife will be so sorry to have missed you. We have both been looking forward so much to your visit.'

'You knew I was coming?' said the minister, a whit startled.

'I naturally expected a pastoral visit sooner or later.'

'I'm afraid it is later,' murmured the minister, subsiding into the chair.

'Better late than never,' cried Simeon Samuels heartily, as he produced a bottle from the sideboard. 'Do you take it with hot water?'

'Thank you—not at all. I am only staying a moment.'

'Ah!' He stroked his beard. 'You are busy?'

'Terribly busy,' said the Rev. Elkan Gabriel.

'Even on Sunday?'

'Rather! It's my day for secretarial work, as there's no school.'

'Poor Mr. Gabriel. I at least have Sunday to myself. But you have to work Saturday and Sunday too. It's really too bad.'

'Eh,' said the minister blankly.

'Oh, of course I know you must work on the Sabbath.'

'I work on—on Shabbos!' The minister flushed to the temples.

'Oh, I'm not blaming you. One must live. In an [143]ideal world of course you'd preach and pray and sing and recite the Law for nothing so that Heaven might perhaps overlook your hard labour, but as things are you must take your wages.'
"I work on--on Shabbos!"

"I work on—on Shabbos!"ToList

The minister had risen agitatedly. 'I earn my wages for the rest of my work—the Sabbath work I throw in,' he said hotly.

'Oh come, Mr. Gabriel, that quibble is not worthy of you. But far be it from me to judge a fellow-man.'

'Far be it indeed!' The attempted turning of his sabre-point gave him vigour for the lunge. 'You—you whose shop stands brazenly open every Saturday!'

'My dear Mr. Gabriel, I couldn't break the Fourth Commandment.'

'What!'

'Would you have me break the Fourth Commandment?'

'I do not understand.'

'And yet you hold a Rabbinic diploma, I am told. Does not the Fourth Commandment run: "Six days shalt thou labour and do all thy work"? If I were to close on Saturday I should only be working five days a week, since in this heathen country Sunday closing is compulsory.'

'But you don't keep the other half of the Commandment,' said the bewildered minister. '"And on the seventh is the Sabbath."'

'Yes, I do—after my six days the seventh is my Sabbath. I only sinned once, if you will have it so, the first time I shifted the Sabbath to Sunday, since when my Sabbath has arrived regularly on Sundays.'

'But you did sin once!' said the minister, catching at that straw.

[144]'Granted, but as to get right again would now make a second sin, it seems more pious to let things be. Not that I really admit the first sin, for let me ask you, sir, which is near............