Hence it was surprising to see Alec Segal in a shop doorway far up Cambridge Street on the afternoon of Yom Kippur. It added to the surprise to find Harry Sewelson join him after some minutes, for the four parents of these youths, emancipated to the pitch of transferring a kettle to and from the fire on shabbos, were yet very far from the transgression of this ultimate sanctity; a sanctity of such awe as might overwhelm spirits even of the defiant aloofness of Segal and Harry.
"You're late!" said Segal.
"Three minutes!"
"Six and a half to be precise!"
"You'll be taking notes of how long your neck's in the noose before you're dead...."
"Yes, and make a graph of the parabola of my descent. But why are you late? Called in at a public-house en route?"
"No fear! I've had a drink at the scullery-tap, it was a little less ostentatious. I suppose you've had a drink?"
"Yes, I hid a bottle of lemonade in my mattress!" declared Segal cunningly.
"I'm not thirsty but I'm jolly peckish. My elder sister fainted, so I had to take her home. As for Esther—you know, my other sister—she's only fifteen, but she's dead nuts on fasting. Queer thing, the less she puts down the more she brings up! She's been sick all day!"
"But that young scoundrel's not turned up yet! I wonder if anything's wrong?"