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108 "What is the matter with you?" cried Schonberg. "Why do you wish to leave? Do you want more wages?"

"No, no, Mr. Schonberg, that is not the reason. But—but I can stay no longer here at Gyöngös, I must go to Hort."

"To Hort? What is the reason of that?"

For reply the dazed fellow held out the letter for him to read. Schonberg glanced over it, and smiled. "This Kalimann," he murmured, "is a deuce of a fellow. The world has lost a novelist in him. But let me see how I can arrange matters. Mendel," he continued, turning to the open-mouthed lover, "you shall stay here, and you shall marry your Gutel. I will give you two or three rooms in the factory for your house-keeping, and Mrs. Barkany will give the girl her trousseau. How does that strike you?"

Mendel beamed. He would have thrown himself on his employer's neck, but resisted the impulse, and, instead, brushed the back of his hand across his eyes. Schonberg gave him a day's holiday, and the happy fellow lost no time in making his way to Hort, and subsequently into the arms of his inamorata. Mrs. Barkany gave Gutel the trousseau, and the marriage took place at harvest-time.

At one end of the table, in the seat of honor next to the rabbi, sat the bookbinder of Hort. All had been his work, and, truth to tell, this was