Flutter-Duck could not resist rushing in to show the gorgeous goose she had bought from a man in the street—a most wonderful bargain. Although it was only a Wednesday, why should they not have a goose? They were at the thick of the busy season, and the winter promised to be bitter, so they could afford it.
"Nee, nee; there are enough Festivals in our religion already," grumbled her husband, who, despite his hacking cough, had been driven to the work-table by the plentifulness of work and the scarcity of "hands."
"Almost as big a goose as herself!" whispered Emanuel Lefkovitch to his circle. He had made his peace with his wife, and was again become the centre of the work-room's gaiety. "What a bargain!" he said aloud, clucking his tongue with admiration. And Flutter-Duck, consoled for her husband's criticism, scurried out again to have her bargain killed by the official slaughterer.
When she returned, doleful and indignant, with the goose still in her basket, and the news that the functionary had refused it Jewish execution, and pronounced it tripha (unclean) for some minute ritual reason, she broke off her denunciation of the vendor from a sudden perception that some graver misfortune had happened in her absence.
"Nee, nee," said Lewis, when she stopped her chatter. "Decidedly God will not have us make Festival to-day. Even you must work."
"Me?" gasped Flutter-Duck.
Then she learnt that Emanuel Lefkovitch, whom she had left so gay, had been taken with acute pains—and had had to go home. And work pressed, and Flutter-Duck must under-study him in all her spare moments. She was terribly vexed—she had arranged to go and see an old crony's daughter married in the Synagogue that afternoon, and she would have to give that up, if indeed her husband did not even expect her to give up the ball in the evening. She temporarily tethered the goose's leg to a bed-post by a long string, so that for the rest of the day the big bird waddled pompously about the floor and under the bed, unconscious to what or whom it owed its life, and blissfully unaware that it was tripha.
"Nee, nee," sniggered Lewis, as Flutter-Duck savagely kicked the cat out of her way. "Don't be alarmed, Rebbitzin won't attack it. Rebbitzin is a better judge of triphas than you."
It was another cat, but it was the same joke.
Flutter-Duck began to clean the fish with intensified viciousness. She had bought them as a substitute for the goose, and they were a constant reminder of her complex illhap. Very soon she cut her finger, and scoured the walls vainly in search of cobweb ligature. Bitter was her plaint of the servant's mismanagement; when she herself had looked after the house there had been no lack of cobwebs in the corners. Nor was this the end of Flutter-Duck's misfortunes. When, in the course of the afternoon, she sent up to Mrs. Levy on the second floor to remind her that she would be wanting her embroidered petticoat for the evening, answer came back that it was the anniversary of Mrs. Levy's mother's death, and she could not permit even her petticoat to go to a wedding. Finally, the gloves that Flutter-Duck borrowed from the chandler's wife were split at the thumbs. And so the servant was kept running to and fro, spoiling the neighbours for the greater glory of Flutter-Duck. It was only at the eleventh hour that an embroidered petticoat was obtained.