"Head downward?"
"Isn't that always the way with us? How should it be otherwise?"
"I don't know!"
"However, that's how it was! And the thing was not so underhand as you suppose.
"There was a Jew who was very rich, and this rich Jew, as is usually the case, was a little, not to say very much, in with the authorities, and everything was in his name; it was his Shool, his bath, his women's bath—even to his burial ground—and nothing was said; as I tell you, he was a person of influence!
"And when the paper came from high quarters, he was to transcribe it in the name of the community and stop paying sop-money to the local police."
"And then the rich man said: 'To my account'?"
"No, my dear sir, such rich people didn't exist in those days. 'To my account' was a thing unknown; but hear what happened, what things may come to pass!
"It was not the Gevir, but the envoy who caused the trouble. He made off, half-way, with the money and the papers, and left the freshly-baked community like a grass-widow with a family."
"Did they send another?"