'They could deposit a sum of money with you, and draw against it.'
'Not with me!' Peleg made a grimace. 'All very well for your line, but in mine I should have to deposit a sum of money with them. I don't suppose they'd bring their pledges on Friday night, and wait till Saturday night for the money. Besides, how could one remember? One would have to profane the Sabbath by writing!'
'Write! Heaven forbid!' ejaculated Solomon Barzinsky. 'But you could have a system of marking the amounts against their names in your register. A pin could be stuck in to represent a pound, or a stamp stuck on to indicate a crown. There are lots of ways. One could always give one's self a device,' he concluded in Yiddish.
'But it is written in Job, "He disappointeth the devices of the crafty, so that their hands cannot perform their enterprise." Have a little of Job's patience, and trust the Lord to confound the sinner. We shall yet see Simeon Samuels in the Bankruptcy Court.'
'I hope not, the rogue! I'd like to see him ruined!'
'That's what I mean. Leave him to the Lord.'
'The Lord is too long-suffering,' said Solomon. 'Ah, our Parnass has caught us up. Good Shabbos (Sabbath), Parnass. This is a fine scandal for a God-fearing congregation. I congratulate you.'
'Is he open again?' gasped the Parnass, hurled from his judicial calm.
'Is my eye open?' witheringly retorted Barzinsky. 'A fat lot of good your preacher does.'
'It was you who would elect him instead of Rochinsky,' the Parnass reminded him. Barzinsky was taken aback.