"Psh! I should think, very likely!" broke in Reb Shloimeh. "Why not?"
The teacher pursued his way, and gave an explanation of spectral analysis. He spoke at some length, and Reb Shloimeh sat and listened with close attention. "Now do you understand?" asked the teacher, coming to an end.
Reb Shloimeh made no reply, he only looked up from under his brows.
The teacher went on:
"The earth," he said, "has stood for many years. Their exact number is not known, but calculation brings it to several million—"
"Ê," burst in the old man, "I should like to know what next! I thought everyone knew that—that even they—"
"Wait a bit, Reb Shloimeh," interrupted the teacher, "I will explain directly."
"Ma! It makes me sick to hear you," was the irate reply, and Reb Shloimeh got up and left the room.
All that day Reb Shloimeh was in a bad temper, and went about with knitted brows. He was angry with science, with the teacher, with himself, because he must needs have listened to it all.
"Chatter and foolishness! And there I sit and listen to it!" he said to himself with chagrin. But he remembered the "chatter," something begins to weigh on his heart and brain, he would like to find a something to catch hold of, a proof of the vanity and emptiness of their teaching, to invent some hard question, and stick out a long red tongue at them all—those nowadays barbarians, those nowadays Newtons.