“What young fellow do you mean, my good man?”
“Vochan, of coursh—Mashter Vochan.”
“Ho! ho! you’ve changed your tune. What’s this about?”
“I hash reason, Shoodith; I hash reason.”
“Who said I was trifling with him? Not I, father! Anything but that, I can assure you.”
“That ish not what I mean, Shoodith.”
“Well, then, what do you mean, old gentleman? Come now! make yourself intelligible!”
“I mean thish, Shoodith: you mushn’t let things go any further with the young fellow—that ish, shoost now—till I knowsh something more about him. I thought he wash going to be lich—you know I thought that, mine daughter—but I hash found out, thish very night, that—perhaps—he may never be worth a shingle shilling; and therefore, Shoodith, you couldn’t think of marrying him—and mushn’t think of it till we knowsh more about him!”
“Father!” replied the Jewess, at once throwing aside her habitual badinage, and assuming a serious tone, “it is too late! Did I not tell you that the tarantula might get caught in its own trap? The proverb has proved true; I am that unhappy spider!”
“You don’t say so, Shoodith?” inquired the father, with a look of alarm.