Ghetto Comedies Part 5

'It isn't that, Hannah,' he grumbled. 'Think of the beautiful war-sermon he missed. In these dark days we should be thinking of our country, not of our pleasures.' And he drew her angrily without, where the brightly-dressed wors.h.i.+ppers, lingeringly exchanging eulogiums on the 'Rule Britannia' sermon, made an Oriental splotch of colour on the wintry pavement.

VI

At lunch the reprobate appeared, looking downcast.

'Where have you been?' thundered S. Cohn, who, never growing older, imagined Simon likewise stationary.

'I went out for a walk--it was a fine morning.'

'And where did you go?'

'Oh, don't bother!'

'But I shall bother. Where did you go?'

He grew sullen. 'It doesn't matter--they won't have me.'

'Who won't have you?'

'The War Office.'

'Thank G.o.d!' broke from Mrs. Cohn.

'Eh?' Mr. Cohn looked blankly from one to the other.

'It is nothing--he went to see the enlisting and all that. Your soup is getting cold.'

But S. Cohn had taken off his gold spectacles and was polis.h.i.+ng them with his serviette--always a sign of a stormy meal.

'It seems to me something has been going on behind my back,' he said, looking from mother to son.

'Well, I didn't want to annoy you with Simon's madcap ideas,' Hannah murmured. 'But it's all over now, thank G.o.d!'

'Oh, he'd better know,' said Simon sulkily, 'especially as I am not going to be choked off. It's all stuff what the doctor says. I'm as strong as a horse. And, what's more, I'm one of the few applicants who can ride one.'

'Hannah, will you explain to me what this _Meshuggas_ (madness) is?'

cried S. Cohn, lapsing into a non-Anglicism.

'I've got to go to the front, just like other young men!'

'What!' shrieked S. Cohn. 'Enlist! You, that I brought up as a gentleman!'

'It's gentlemen that's going--the City Imperial Volunteers!'

'The volunteers! But that's my own clerks.'

'No; there are gentlemen among them. Read your paper.'

'But not rich Jews.'

'Oh, yes. I saw several chaps from Bayswater.'

'We Jews of this favoured country,' put in Hannah eagerly, 'grateful to the n.o.ble people who have given us every right, every liberty, must----'

S. Cohn was taken aback by this half-unconscious quotation from the war-sermon of the morning. 'Yes, we must subscribe and all that,' he interrupted.

'We must fight,' said Simon.

'You fight!' His father laughed half-hysterically. 'Why, you'd shoot yourself with your own gun!' He had not been so upset since the day the minister had disregarded his erudition.

'Oh, would I, though?' And Simon pursed his lips and nodded meaningly.

'As sure as to-day is the Holy Sabbath. And you'd be stuck on your own bayonet, like an obstinate pig.'

Simon got up and left the table and the room.

Hannah kept back her tears before the servant. 'There!' she said. 'And now he's turned sulky and won't eat.'

'Didn't I say an obstinate pig? He's always been like that from a baby. But his stomach always surrenders.' He resumed his meal with a wronged air, keeping his spectacles on the table, for frequent nervous polis.h.i.+ng.

Of a sudden the door reopened and a soldier presented himself--gun on shoulder. For a moment S. Cohn, devoid of his gla.s.ses, stared without recognition. Wild hereditary tremors ran through him, born of the Russian persecution, and he had a vague nightmare sense of the _Chappers_, the Jewish man-gatherers who collected the tribute of young Jews for the Little Father. But as Simon began to loom through the red fog, 'A gun on the Sabbath!' he cried. It was as if the bullet had gone through all his conceptions of life and of Simon.

Hannah s.n.a.t.c.hed at the side-issue. 'I read in Josephus--Simon's prize for Hebrew, you know--that the Jews fought against the Romans on Sabbath.'

'Yes; but they fought for themselves--for our Holy Temple.'

'But it's for ourselves now,' said Simon. 'Didn't you always say we are English?'

S. Cohn opened his mouth in angry retort. Then he discovered he had no retort, only anger. And this made him angrier, and his mouth remained open, quite terrifyingly for poor Mrs. Cohn.

'What is the use of arguing with him?' she said imploringly. 'The War Office has been sensible enough to refuse him.'

'We shall see,' said Simon. 'I am going to peg away at 'em again, and if I don't get into the Mounted Infantry, I'm a Dutchman--and of the Boer variety.'

He seemed any kind of man save a Jew to the puzzled father. 'Hannah, you must have known of this--these clothes,' S. Cohn spluttered.

'They don't cost anything,' she murmured. 'The child amuses himself.

He will never really be called out.'

'If he is, I'll stop his supplies.'

'Oh,' said Simon airily, 'the Government will attend to that.'

'Indeed!' And S. Cohn's face grew black. 'But remember--you may go, but you shall never come back.'

'Oh, Solomon! How can you utter such an awful omen?'

Simon laughed. 'Don't bother, mother. He's bound to take me back.