The almsgatherers threw themselves on the urchins with their sticks, and there was a bit of a row.
Mekabbel the Long, standing on the cart, drew himself to his full height, and began to shout:
"Hush, hush, hush! Quiet, you crazy cripples! One can't hear oneself speak! Let us hear what those have to say who are worth listening to!" and he turned to us with the words:
"You must know, dear Jews, that unless they distribute kerblech among us, we shall not budge. Never you fear! Reb Yitzchok-Aizik won't marry his youngest daughter without us, and where is he to get others of us now? To send to Lunetz would cost him more in conveyances, and he would have to put off the marriage."
"What do they suppose? That because we are poor people they can do what they please with us?" and a new striker hitched himself up by the wheel, blind of one eye, with a tied-up jaw. "No one can oblige us to go, even the chief of police and the governor cannot force us—either it's kerblech, or we stay where we are."
"K-ke-kkerb-kkerb-lech!!" came from Feitel the Stammerer.
"Nienblech!" put in Yainkel Fonfatch, speaking through his small nose. "No, more!" called out a couple of merry paupers.
"Kerblech, kerblech!" shouted the rest in concert.
And through their shouting and their speeches sounded such a note of anger and of triumph, it seemed as though they were pouring out all the bitterness of soul collected in the course of their sad and luckless lives.
They had always kept silence, had had to keep silence, had to swallow the insults offered them along with the farthings, and the dry bread, and the scraped bones, and this was the first time they had been able to retaliate, the first time they had known how it felt to be entreated by the fortunate in all things, and they were determined to use their opportunity of asserting themselves to the full, to take their revenge. In the word kerblech lay the whole sting of their resentment.