His wife hastened to obliterate the unrefined expression.

“Mr. Strelitski is a wonderfully eloquent young man, so quiet and reserved in society, but like an ancient prophet in the pulpit.”

“Yes, we were very lucky to get him,” said Mr. Henry Goldsmith.

The little dark girl shuddered.

“What is the matter?” asked Raphael softly.

“I don’t know.  I don’t like the Rev. Joseph Strelitski.  He is eloquent, but his dogmatism irritates me.  I don’t believe he is sincere.  He doesn’t like me, either.”

“Oh, you’re both wrong,” he said in concern.

“Strelitski is a draw, I admit,” said Mr. Montagu Samuels, who was the President of a rival synagogue.  “But Rosenbaum is a good pull-down on the other side, eh?”

Mr. Henry Goldsmith groaned.  The second minister of the Kensington synagogue was the scandal of the community.  He wasn’t expected to preach, and he didn’t practise.

“I’ve heard of that man,” said Sidney laughing.  “He’s a bit of a gambler and a spendthrift, isn’t he?  Why do you keep him on?”

“He has a fine voice, you see,” said Mr. Goldsmith.  “That makes a Rosenbaum faction at once.  Then he has a wife and family.  That makes another.”

“Strelitski isn’t married, is he?” asked Sidney.

“No,” said Mr. Goldsmith, “not yet.  The congregation expects him to, though.  I don’t care to give him the hint myself; he is a little queer sometimes.”

“He owes it to his position,” said Miss Cissy Levine.

“That is what we think,” said Mrs. Henry Goldsmith, with the majestic manner that suited her opulent beauty.

“I wish we had him in our synagogue,” said Raphael.  “Michaels is a well-meaning worthy man, but he is dreadfully dull.”

“Poor Raphael!” said Sidney.  “Why did you abolish the old style of minister who had to slaughter the sheep?  Now the minister reserves all his powers of destruction for his own flock.’”

“I have given him endless hints to preach only once a month,” said Mr. Montagu Samuels dolefully.  “But every Saturday our hearts sink as we see him walk to the pulpit.”

“You see, Addie, how a sense of duty makes a man criminal,” said Sidney.  “Isn’t Michaels the minister who defends orthodoxy in a way that makes the orthodox rage over his unconscious heresies, while the heterodox enjoy themselves by looking out for his historical and grammatical blunders!”

“Poor man, he works hard,” said Raphael, gently.  “Let him be.”

Over the dessert the conversation turned by way of the Rev. Strelitski’s marriage, to the growing willingness of the younger generation to marry out of Judaism.  The table discerned in inter-marriage the beginning of the end.