'Eh?' Mr. Cohn looked blankly from one to the other.
'It is nothing—he went to see the enlisting and all that. Your soup is getting cold.'
But S. Cohn had taken off his gold spectacles and was polishing them with his serviette—always a sign of a stormy meal.
'It seems to me something has been going on behind my back,' he said, looking from mother to son.
'Well, I didn't want to annoy you with Simon's madcap ideas,' Hannah murmured. 'But it's all over now, thank God!'
'Oh, he'd better know,' said Simon sulkily, 'especially as I am not going to be choked off. It's all stuff what the doctor says. I'm as strong as a horse. And, what's more, I'm one of the few applicants who can ride one.'
'Hannah, will you explain to me what this Meshuggas (madness) is?' cried S. Cohn, lapsing into a non-Anglicism.
'I've got to go to the front, just like other young men!'
'What!' shrieked S. Cohn. 'Enlist! You, that I brought up as a gentleman!'
'It's gentlemen that's going—the City Imperial Volunteers!'