"Hersh! Hersh! my Hersh!"
After a while. Saul began to talk again:
"We have in our family a great treasure—such a treasure as has no equal in all Israel. This treasure is a long document, written by our ancestor Michael the Senior, and left by him, and in which there are written noble and wise things. If we could get that document of wisdom we should be happy. The only trouble is that we don't know where it is."
From the time Saul began to talk of the document left by his ancestor, among the many eyes looking at him two pairs sparkled passionately, with, however, quite contradictory sentiments. They were the eyes of the melamed, who laughed softly and maliciously, and the eyes of Meir who drew himself up in his chair and looked into his grandfather's face with burning curiosity.
"This writing," Saul said further, "was hidden for two hundred years and nobody has touched it. And when the two hundred years were ended, my father, Hersh, found it. Where he found it no one but our old great-grandmother knows."
Here he pointed to his mother, and then finished:
"And she alone knows where he hid that writing, but as yet she has told no one."
"And why did she tell no one?" laughed maliciously and softly the melamed.
Saul answered in a sad voice:
"Reb Nohim Todros—may his memory be blessed—has forbidden her to speak of it."