Shmul shook his head pityingly.
"Ah! ah!" he sighed. "Johel is a poor man—a very poor man. He has been in prison three years, and now cannot find work, but is obliged to seek shelter in the poorhouse."
Johel sighed deeply, but soon raised his head almost defiantly.
"That cannot be helped," he said. "Perhaps I shall soon see my way to make a big profit."
The words of the vagrant recalled to Meir's mind the short interview he had witnessed at the window of the poorhouse between Johel and Jankiel Kamionker. At the same time, he was struck by the expression of the tailor's face, which twitched all over as if under the influence of great excitement. His eyes sparkled and his hands trembled.
"Who knows," he exclaimed, "what may happen in the future? Those that are poor one day may become rich the next. Who knows? The poor tailor Shmul may yet build a house on the Market Square, and set up in business for himself."
Meir smiled sadly. The groundless hopes of these poor outcasts stirred his compassion. He looked absently around, and through the windows at the fields beyond.
"You, Shmul," he said, "will certainly not build big houses; nor you, Johel, make heavy profits. Is it to be thought of? You are too many, and there is not enough for you all. I sometimes think that if you left these narrow, dirty streets, and looked about in the world, you might find a better way of living; even if you worked like peasants on the soil your life would be easier."
He said this in an absent way, not so much addressing the two men before him as the noisy crowd without. But when Shmul heard these words, he twice jumped into the air, and twisted his cap upon his head.
"Morejne!" he cried out, "what ugly words come from your lips.
Morejne, do you wish to turn Israel upside down?"