The Rev. Elkan Gabriel quoted Scripture. 'The Lord is merciful and long-suffering, and will not at once awaken all His wrath.'
'But meantime the sinner makes a pretty penny!' quoth Solomon, unappeased. 'Saturday is pay-day, and the heathen haven't patience to wait till the three stars are out and our shops can open. It is your duty, Mr. Gabriel, to put a stop to this profanation.'
The minister hummed and ha'd. He was middle-aged, and shabby, with a German diploma and accent and a large family. It was the first time in his five years of office that one of his congregants had suggested such authoritativeness on his part. Elected by their vote, he was treated as their servant, his duties rigidly prescribed, his religious ideas curbed and corrected by theirs. What wonder if he could not suddenly rise to dictatorship? Even at home Mrs. Gabriel was a congregation in herself. But as the week went by he found Barzinsky was not the only man to egg him on to prophetic denunciation; the congregation at large treated him as responsible for the scandal, and if the seven marine-dealers were the bitterest, the pawnbrokers and the linen-drapers were none the less outraged.
'It is a profanation of the Name,' they said unanimously, 'and such a bad example to our poor!'
'He would not listen to me,' the poor minister would protest. 'You had much better talk to him yourself.'
'Me!' the button-holer would ejaculate. 'I would not lower myself. He'd think I was jealous of his success.'
Simeon Samuels seemed, indeed, a formidable person to tackle. Bland and aloof, he pursued his own affairs, meeting the congregation only in synagogue, and then more bland and aloof than ever.
At last the Minister received a presidential command to preach upon the subject forthwith.
'But there's no text suitable just yet,' he pleaded. 'We are still in Genesis.'
'Bah!' replied the Parnass impatiently, 'any text can be twisted to point any moral. You must preach next Sabbath.'