Page:Yiddish Tales.djvu/327

 REB SHLOIMEH 323

"We shall not take geography to-day," answered the teacher.

"Have your 'astronomers' found out by calculation on which days we may learn geography?" asked Eeb Shloimeh, with malicious irony.

"No, that's a discovery of mine!" and the teacher smiled.

"And when have 'your* astronomers decreed the study of geography ?" persisted Reb Shloimeh.

"To-morrow."

"To-morrow !" he repeated crossly, and left the room, missing a lesson for the first time.

Next day the teacher explained the eclipses of the sun and moon to his pupils. Reb Shloimeh sat with his chair drawn up to the table, and listened without a movement.

"It is all so exact," the teacher wound up his explana- tion, "that the astronomers are able to calculate to a minute when there will be an eclipse, and have never yet made a mistake."

At these last words Reb Shloimeh nodded in a know- ing way, and looked at the pupils as much as to say, "You ask me about that !"

The teacher went on to tell of comets, planets, and other suns. Reb Shloimeh snorted, and was continually interrupting the teacher with exclamations. "If you don't believe me, go and measure for yourself !" "If it is not so, call me a liar!" "Just so!" "Within one yard of it !"

Reb Shloimeh repaid his Jewish education with inter- est. There were not many learned men in the town