Chayyim is about to reply, "But I can't go there, I haven't the courage," only that it doesn't suit him to be so frank with his wife, and he answers:
"Devil take him! He won't lend anything!"
"Try! It won't hurt," she persists.
And Chayyim reflects that he has no other resource, that Loibe-Bäres is a rich man, and living in the same street, a neighbor in fact, and that he requires no money for the fair, being a dealer in lumber and timber.
"Give me out my Sabbath overcoat!" says Chayyim to his wife, in a resolute tone.
"Didn't I say so?" the wife answers. "It's the best thing you can do, to go to him."
Chayyim placed himself before a half-broken looking-glass which was nailed to the wall, smoothed his beard with both hands, tightened his earlocks, and then took off his hat, and gave it a polish with his sleeve.
"Just look and see if I haven't got any white on my coat off the wall!"
"If you haven't?" the wife answered, and began slapping him with both hands over the shoulders.
"I thought we once had a little clothes-brush. Where is it? ha?"