foul conspirators—­in one clean sweep, down, down to Sheol.  He would sweep them along the floor with it—­so—­and grin; he would beat time to their yells of agony—­so—­and laugh; he would beat them over the heads—­so—­and roar; he would lean upon it in statuesque greatness—­so—­and thrill; he would sweep away their remains with it—­so—­and weep for joy of countermining and quelling the long persecution.

All night he wrote the play at railway speed, like a night express—­puffing out volumes of smoke as he panted along.  “I dip my pen in their blood,” he said from time to time, and threw back his head and laughed aloud in the silence of the small hours.

Pinchas had a good deal to do to explain the next day to the actor-manager where the fun came in.  “Thou dost not grasp all the allusions, the back-handed slaps, the hidden poniards; perhaps not,” the author acknowledged.  “But the great heart of the people—­it will understand.”

The actor-manager was unconvinced, but he admitted there was a good deal of besom, and in consideration of the poet bating his terms to five per cent. of the receipts he agreed to give it a chance.  The piece was billed widely in several streets under the title of “The Hornet of Judah,” and the name of Melchitsedek Pinchas appeared in letters of the size stipulated by the finger on the nose.

But the leading actress threw up her part at the last moment, disgusted by the poet’s amorous advances; Pinchas volunteered to play the part himself and, although his offer was rejected, he attired himself in skirts and streaked his complexion with red and white to replace the promoted second actress, and shaved off his beard.

But in spite of this heroic sacrifice, the gods were unpropitious.  They chaffed the poet in polished Yiddish throughout the first two acts.  There was only a sprinkling of audience (most of it paper) in the dimly-lit hall, for the fame of the great writer had not spread from Berlin, Mogadore, Constantinople and the rest of the universe.

No one could make head or tail of the piece with its incessant play of occult satire against clergymen with four mistresses, Rabbis who sold their daughters, stockbrokers ignorant of Hebrew and destitute of English, greengrocers blowing Messianic and their own trumpets, labor-leaders embezzling funds, and the like.  In vain the actor-manager swept the floor with the besom, beat time with the besom, beat his mother-in-law with the besom, leaned on the besom, swept bits of white paper with the besom.  The hall, empty of its usual crowd, was fuller of derisive laughter.  At last the spectators tired of laughter and the rafters re-echoed with hoots.  At the end of the second act, Melchitsedek Pinchas addressed the audience from the stage, in his ample petticoats, his brow streaming with paint and perspiration.  He spoke of the great English conspiracy and expressed his grief and astonishment at finding it had infected the entire Ghetto.