He remembers and smiles.
It was a long, long time ago; at that time the excise regulations were still in force, and he was a night watchman, and went about all night with an iron staff, so that no brandy should be smuggled into the town.
He knew what service was! To serve with Phonye was good discipline; he had had good teachers. It was a winter's morning before daybreak, he went to have his watch relieved by Chaïm Yoneh—he is in the world of truth now—and then went home, half-frozen and stiff. He knocked at the door and Shprintze called out from her bed:
"Into the ground with you! I thought your dead body would come home some time!"
Oho! she is angry still, because of yesterday. He cannot remember what happened, but so it must be.
"Shut your mouth and open the door!" he shouts.
"I'll open your head for you!" is the swift reply.
"Let me in!"
"Go into the ground, I tell you!"
And he turned away and went into the house-of-study, where he lay down to sleep under the stove. As ill-luck would have it, it was a charcoal stove, and he was suffocated and brought home like a dead man.