"But he's so weakly," protested Mendel Hyams, who was in the minority.
"He coughs blood."
"He ought to go to a sunny place for a week," said Belcovitch compassionately.
"Yes, he must certainly have that," said Karlkammer. "Let us add as a rider that although we cannot pay him more per week, he must have a week's holiday in the country. The Shalotten Shammos shall write the letter to Rothschild."
Rothschild was a magic name in the Ghetto; it stood next to the Almighty's as a redresser of grievances and a friend of the poor, and the Shalotten Shammos made a large part of his income by writing letters to it. He charged twopence halfpenny per letter, for his English vocabulary was larger than any other scribe's in the Ghetto, and his words were as much longer than theirs as his body. He also filled up printed application forms for Soup or Passover cakes, and had a most artistic sense of the proportion of orphans permissible to widows and a correct instinct for the plausible duration of sicknesses.
The Committee agreed nem. con. to the grant of a seaside holiday, and the Shalotten Shammos with a gratified feeling of importance waived his twopence halfpenny. He drew up a letter forthwith, not of course in the name of the Sons of the Covenant, but in the Maggid's own.
He took the magniloquent sentences to the Maggid for signature. He found the Maggid walking up and down Royal Street waiting for the verdict. The Maggid walked with a stoop that was almost a permanent bow, so that his long black beard reached well towards his baggy knees. His curved eagle nose was grown thinner, his long coat shinier, his look more haggard, his corkscrew earlocks were more matted, and when he spoke his voice was a tone more raucous. He wore his high hat—a tall cylinder that reminded one of a weather-beaten turret.
The Shalotten Shammos explained briefly what he had done.
"May thy strength increase!" said the Maggid in the Hebrew formula of gratitude.
"Nay, thine is more important," replied the Shalotten Shammos with hilarious heartiness, and he proceeded to read the letter as they walked along together, giant and doubled-up wizard.
"But I haven't got a wife and six children," said the Maggid, for whom one or two phrases stood out intelligible. "My wife is dead and I never was blessed with a Kaddish."