in sanctity to the Scroll of the Law, and he who does not wear it may never hope to attain to congregational dignities.  The gloss on that hat was wonderful, considering it had been out unprotected in all winds and weathers.  Not that Mr. Belcovitch did not possess an umbrella.  He had two,—­one of fine new silk, the other a medley of broken ribs and cotton rags.  Becky had given him the first to prevent the family disgrace of the spectacle of his promenades with the second.  But he would not carry the new one on week-days because it was too good.  And on Sabbaths it is a sin to carry any umbrella.  So Becky’s self-sacrifice was vain, and her umbrella stood in the corner, a standing gratification to the proud possessor.  Kosminski had had a hard fight for his substance, and was not given to waste.  He was a tall, harsh-looking man of fifty, with grizzled hair, to whom life meant work, and work meant money, and money meant savings.  In Parliamentary Blue-Books, English newspapers, and the Berner Street Socialistic Club, he was called a “sweater,” and the comic papers pictured him with a protuberant paunch and a greasy smile, but he had not the remotest idea that he was other than a God-fearing, industrious, and even philanthropic citizen.  The measure that had been dealt to him he did but deal to others.  He saw no reason why immigrant paupers should not live on a crown a week while he taught them how to handle a press-iron or work a sewing machine.  They were much better off than in Poland.  He would have been glad of such an income himself in those terrible first days of English life when he saw his wife and his two babes starving before his eyes, and was only precluded from investing a casual twopence in poison by ignorance of the English name for anything deadly.  And what did he live on now?  The fowl, the pint of haricot beans, and the haddocks which Chayah purchased for the Sabbath overlapped into the middle of next week, a quarter of a pound of coffee lasted the whole week, the grounds being decocted till every grain of virtue was extracted.  Black bread and potatoes and pickled herrings made up the bulk of the every-day diet No, no one could accuse Bear Belcovitch of fattening on the entrails of his employees.  The furniture was of the simplest and shabbiest,—­no aesthetic instinct urged the Kosminskis to overpass the bare necessities of existence, except in dress.  The only concessions to art were a crudely-colored Mizrach on the east wall, to indicate the direction towards which the Jew should pray, and the mantelpiece mirror which was bordered with yellow scalloped paper (to save the gilt) and ornamented at each corner with paper roses that bloomed afresh every Passover.  And yet Bear Belcovitch had lived in much better style in Poland, possessing a brass wash-hand basin, a copper saucepan, silver spoons, a silver consecration beaker, and a cupboard with glass doors, and he frequently adverted to their fond memories.  But he brought nothing away except his bedding, and that was pawned in Germany on the route.  When he arrived in London he had with him three groschen and a family.