"On Election Day I saw a man who was buying votes whisper to him."
"Whisper to him! Whisper to him! Ha-ha, ha-ha! Well, is that all the evidence you have got against Mr. Leary? I suppose that's the kind of evidence you have about the buying of votes, too. I am afraid you don't quite understand what you see, Levinsky."
His answers were far from convincing. I was wondering what interest he had to defend Leary, to deny things that everybody saw. But he disarmed me by the force of his irritation
Bender himself was a clean, honest fellow. In his peculiar American way, he was very religious, and I knew that his piety was not a mere affectation.
Which was another puzzle to me, for all the educated Jews of my birthplace were known to be atheists. He belonged to a Reformed synagogue, where he conducted a Bible class
One evening he expanded on the beauty of the English translation of the Old Testament. He told me it was the best English to be found in all literature
"Study the Bible, Levinsky! Read it and read it again."
The suggestion took my fancy, for I could read the English Bible with the aid of the original Hebrew text. I began with Psalm 104, the poem that had thrilled me when I was on shipboard. I read the English version of it before Bender until I pronounced the words correctly. I thought I realized their music. I got the chapter by heart. When I recited it before Bender he was joyously surprised and called me a "corker."
"What is a corker?" I asked, beamingly
"It's slang for 'a great fellow.'" With which he burst into a lecture on slang