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 REB SHLOIMEH 339

Suddenly he pulled himself together.

"No!" he exclaimed, "they shall not get the better of me," and he ran out of the Talmud Torah, and was gone.

He ran from house to house, to the parents and relations of the children. But they all looked askance at him, and he accomplished nothing: they all kept to it "No I"

"Come, don't be silly! Send, send the children to the Talmud Torah," he begged. "You will see, you will not regret it!"

And he drew a picture for them of the sort of people the children would become.

But it was no use.

"We haven't got to manage the world," they answered him. "We have lived without all that, and our children will live as we are living now. We have no call to make Gentiles of them !"

"We know, we know! People needn't come to us with stories," they would say in another house. "We don't intend to sell our souls !" was the cry in a third.

"And who says I have sold mine?" Eeb Shloimeh would ask sharply.

"How should we know? Besides, who was talking of you?" they answered with a sweet smile.

Reb Shloimeh reached home tired and depressed. The old wife had a shock on seeing him.

"Dear Lord!" she exclaimed, wringing her hands. "What is the matter with you? What makes you look like that ?"