A thrill of subdued expectance went round the chayder. His enemies rubbed their grubby hands gleefully. One or two looked anxious.
But there was no explosion. In the same even tones Reb Monash said, "Nu, and what hast thou been doing?"
Slowly Philip's sallow face flushed a deep crimson. Must he tell? Must he stand there stripped of this new garment which had covered him, fragrant with spices and touched with the colours of a new dawn? But it was the voice not of his own free lips, the voice ordered by some blind, strong dictate of the heart, that said, "I was writing a poetry!"
A slight sound came from Reb Monash's lips. It was only dimly anger; it was also resignation, dismay. His lips closed. The fires of his wrath last night had burned round his son, till at last Philip lay on the sofa, spent, lightless, like a cinder. He had thereon turned to Mrs. Massel who at one stage had ventured to intervene. Would she like to see her son stuff his maws with pig; or perhaps grow up to take a shiksah to his arms? All that night low sobbing came from the room where Philip slept. Even when Reb Monash thought his wife sleeping, there came an answering moan from her bed as the sobbing of the boy entered the room like a frail ghost. Reb Monash turned his eyes upon his Hebrew notebook.
"Go thou! go thou! go!" he said heavily. "I'll deal with thee later!"
Philip passed from the room. The walls of chayder were no more round him; his head rang again with the poor music he had made.
"Mamma!" he said, bursting into the kitchen, "I've made a poetry!"
"Feivele!" she exclaimed with horror. "Why art thou not in chayder?"
"He sent me out!" he answered, his lips quivering. "I've been a bad boy!"
"Then go out into the street!" she said. "He'll see thee here and say I'm petting thee!"