One day as I was gazing from my one-story window at the melancholy marsh to which the flood had reduced the landscape, I said glumly to my hunchbacked landlord, who stood snuffing himself under the porch, "I suppose it will be another week before I can get away."
"Alas! yes," Yarchi replied.
"Why alas?" I asked. "It's an ill wind that blows nobody any good, and the longer I stay the better for you."
He shook his head. "The flood that keeps you here keeps away the pilgrims."
"The pilgrims!" I echoed.
"Ay," said he. "There will be three in that bed of yours."
"But what pilgrims?"
He stared at me. "Don't you know the New Year is nigh?"
"Of course," I said mendaciously. I felt ashamed to confess my ignorant unconcern as to the proximity of the solemn season of ram's-horn blasts and penitence.
"Well, it is at New Year the pilgrims flock to their Wonder Rabbi, that he may hear their petitions and bear them on high, likewise wrestle with Satan, and entreat for their forgiveness at the throne of Grace." There was a twinkle in Yarchi's eyes not quite consistent with the gravity of his words.