Neither mentioned Bessie Sugarman.
"Why do you make so much bother?" Miriam said to Daniel in the evening. "It's the best thing that could have happened. Who'd have dreamed at this hour of the day of coming into possession of a relative who might actually have something to leave us. It'll be a good story to tell, too."
After Shool next morning Mendel spoke to the President.
"Can you lend me six pounds?" he asked.
Belcovitch staggered.
"Six pounds!" he repeated, dazed.
"Yes. I wish to go to America with my wife. And I want you moreover to give your hand as a countryman that you will not breathe a word of this, whatever you hear. Beenah and I have sold a few little trinkets which our children gave us, and we have reckoned that with six pounds more we shall be able to take steerage passages and just exist till I get work."
"But six pounds is a very great sum—without sureties," said Belcovitch, rubbing his time-worn workaday high hat in his agitation.
"I know it is!" answered Mendel, "but God is my witness that I mean to pay you. And if I die before I can do so I vow to send word to my son Daniel, who will pay you the balance. You know my son Daniel. His word is an oath."
"But where shall I get six pounds from?" said Bear helplessly. "I am only a poor tailor, and my daughter gets married soon. It is a great sum. By my honorable word, it is. I have never lent so much in my life, nor even been security for such an amount."