“Ten cents?” said the rabbi, and then, with a sigh, he laid down the fish, as if it were hopelessly beyond his reach.
“Nine, then, and take it, but what did Sarai do?”
The rabbi looked long and intently at the fish, and then, shaking his head sadly, resumed his narrative.
“Sarai pondered over the matter for many, many weeks, and finally decided to put them to a test. Now the name of her father’s favourite was Ezra, while the poor youth was called Joseph. ‘Father,’ she said one day, ‘what is the most difficult task that a man can be put to?’ ‘The most difficult thing that I know of,’ her father promptly replied, ‘is to grasp the real meaning of the Talmud.’
“Thereupon Sarai called Ezra and Joseph before her, and said to them: ‘He that brings to me the real meaning of the Talmud shall have my hand.’ Was that not clever of her?”
“Yes! Yes! But who brought the true answer?” asked Mother Politsky, with breathless interest. The rabbi was looking longingly at the fish.
“How much did you say?”
“Eight cents, eight cents. I don’t want any profit, but who——”
“Neither of the young men,” the rabbi went on, with his eyes still upon the fish, “knew anything about the Talmud, but Joseph, who was well versed in Hebrew, began at once to study it, wherein he had the advantage over Ezra, who knew not a word of Hebrew.”
“Poor Ezra!” murmured Mother Politsky.