"I had the stomach-ache!" he suggested, clasping his hands against his liver as a piece of convincing by-play.
"Ligner!" thundered Reb Monash, "Thou art sound as a Hottentot!"
Jakey withdrew one hand from his stomach, and lifted a thumb to his mouth.
"My muvver's dying!" he said after further meditation.
Reb Monash quivered with wrath.
"Such a year upon thee! Long live they mother, but thou, thou art a proselytized one!"
He advanced to make Jakey more immediately aware of the jeopardy into which his soul had fallen. Jakey looked up shiftily, his eyes watchful. Reb Monash's fist came down upon empty air. Swift as a lizard Jakey darted across to the table. He stood there, Reb Monash's bone-handled stick uplifted. A murmur of horror went round the chayder. Reb Monash with a shout of anger advanced raging. And then it was that his own stick, the symbol of more absolute authority than the Shah's, was brought down upon his own shoulder. There was a silence. Then immediately a tremendous hubbub filled the room. Reb Monash sank into his chair. A few of the youngest lads lifted up their voices and wept. A boy in a corner was giggling nervously.
"Where is he? Where is he?" asked Reb Monash weakly. An enormity had been perpetrated unknown in the annals of chayders. And in his, Reb Monash's, where discipline and holiness were equal stars.
"'E's ran away! I seen 'im!" the cry rose.
Reb Monash grimly took up once more his book of Hebrew words. The long monotone began again.