"How much do you think it would be?"
"Of course it is not a large warehouse; but then you could get your boots at trade price, and your wife's, perhaps, for the cost of the leather."
"When could I see her?"
"I will arrange for you to call next Sabbath afternoon."
"You won't charge me more than a sovereign?"
"Not a groschen more! Such a pious maiden! I'm sure you will be happy. She has so much way-of-the-country [breeding]. And, of course, five per cent on the dowry?"
"H'm! Well, I don't mind!" "Perhaps they won't give a dowry," he thought, with a consolatory sense of outwitting the Shadchan.
On the Saturday Leibel went to see the damsel, and on the Sunday he went to see Sugarman the Shadchan.
"But your maiden squints!" he cried resentfully.
"An excellent thing!" said Sugarman. "A wife who squints can never look her husband straight in the face and overwhelm him. Who would quail before a woman with a squint?"