“Yes, the ordinary Man-of-the-Earth believes everything that’s in Hebrew.  That was the mistake of the Apostles—­to write in Greek.  But then they, too, were such Men-of-the Earth.”

“I wonder who writes such good Hebrew for the missionaries,” said Reb Shemuel.

“I wonder,” gurgled Pinchas, deep in his coffee.

“But, father,” asked Hannah, “don’t you believe any Jew ever really believes in Christianity?”

“How is it possible?” answered Reb Shemuel.  “A Jew who has the Law from Sinai, the Law that will never be changed, to whom God has given a sensible religion and common-sense, how can such a person believe in the farrago of nonsense that makes up the worship of the Christians!  No Jew has ever apostatized except to fill his purse or his stomach or to avoid persecution.  ‘Getting grace’ they call it in English; but with poor Jews it is always grace after meals.  Look at the Crypto-Jews, the Marranos, who for centuries lived a double life, outwardly Christians, but handing down secretly from generation to generation the faith, the traditions, the observances of Judaism.”

“Yes, no Jew was ever fool enough to turn Christian unless he was a clever man,” said the poet paradoxically.  “Have you not, my sweet, innocent young lady, heard the story of the two Jews in Burgos Cathedral?”

“No, what is it?” said Levi, eagerly.

“Well, pass my cup up to your highly superior mother who is waiting to fill it with coffee.  Your eminent father knows the story—­I can see by the twinkle in his learned eye.”

“Yes, that story has a beard,” said the Reb.

“Two Spanish Jews,” said the poet, addressing himself deferentially to Levi, “who had got grace were waiting to be baptized at Burgos Cathedral.  There was a great throng of Catholics and a special Cardinal was coming to conduct the ceremony, for their conversion was a great triumph.  But the Cardinal was late and the Jews fumed and fretted at the delay.  The shadows of evening were falling on vault and transept.  At last one turned to the other and said, ’Knowest them what, Moses?  If the Holy Father does not arrive soon, we shall be too late to say mincha.”

Levi laughed heartily; the reference to the Jewish afternoon prayer went home to him.

“That story sums up in a nutshell the whole history of the great movement for the conversion of the Jews.  We dip ourselves in baptismal water and wipe ourselves with a Talith.  We are not a race to be lured out of the fixed feelings of countless centuries by the empty spirituality of a religion in which, as I soon found out when I lived among the soul-dealers, its very professors no longer believe.  We are too fond of solid things,” said the poet, upon whom a good breakfast was beginning to produce a soothing materialistic effect.  “Do you know that anecdote about the two Jews in the Transvaal?” Pinchas went on.  “That’s a real Chine.”