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 174 SHOLOM-ALECHEM

was right; she might be a woman, but she had a man's head on her shoulders! And as I reflected thus, there came along an individual in gilt Buttons, who turned out to be a teacher, and asked what I wanted. I pointed to my boy, and said I had come to bring him to Cheder. that is, to the Gymnasiye. He asked to which class? I tell him, the third, and he has only just been entered. He asks his name. Say I, "Katz, Moisheh Katz, that is, Moshke Katz." Says he, "Moshke Katz?" He has no Moshke Katz in the third class. "There is," he says, "a Katz, only not a Moshke Katz, but a Morduch Morduch Katz." Say I, "What Morduch ? Moshke, not Morduch !" "Morduch !" he repeats, and thrusts the paper into my face. I to him, "Moshke." He to me, "Morduch !" In short, Moshke Morduch, Morduch Moshke, we hammer away till there comes out a fine tale: that which should have been mine is another's. You see what a kettle of fish? A regular Gentile mud- dle ! They have entered a Katz yes ! But, by mistake, another, not ours. You see how it was : there were two Katz's in our town ! What do you say to such luck ? I have made a bed, and another will lie in it! No, but you ought to know who the other is, that Katz, I mean ! A nothing of a nobody, an artisan, a bookbinder or a carpenter, quite a harmless little man, but who ever heard of him? A pauper! And his son yes! And mine no ! Isn't it enough to disgust one, I ask you ! And you should have seen that poor boy of mine, when he was told to take the badge off his cap ! Xo bride on her wedding-day need shed more tears than were his! And no matter how I reasoned with him,