"But where have we polygamy?" interrupted the Possemacher.
"'As it is still practised in Africa and Asia,'" read on Peloni severely.
"I'm off at once for Africa and Asia!" cried the marriage-jester, pretending to run. "Good business for me there."
"You'll find better business in America," said Peloni scathingly. "For do not all our Austrian young men fly thither to marry, seeing that at home only the eldest son may found a family? A pretty fatherland indeed to be a citizen of—a step-fatherland. Listen, on the contrary, to the noble tolerance of the Jew. 'Christians are freely invited.'"
"Ah! Do you know who'll go?" broke in a narrow-faced zealot. "The missionaries."
Peloni continued hastily: "'Ararat is open, too, to the Caraites and the Samaritans. The Black Jews of India and Africa shall be welcome; our brethren in Cochin-China and the sect on the coast of Malabar; all are welcome.'"
"Ha! ha! ha!" laughed a burly Jew. "So we're to live with the blacks. Enough of this joke!"
But Peloni went on solemnly: "'A Capitation-tax on every Jew of Three Silver Shekels per annum—'"
"Ah, now we have got to it!" and a great roar broke from the crowd. "Not a bad Geschäft, eh?" and they winked. "He is no fool, this Noah."
Peloni's blood boiled. "Do you believe everybody is like yourselves?" he cried. "Listen!"