“I don’t think I know that Maaseh,” said Reb Shemuel.

“Oh, the two Jews had made a trek and were travelling onwards exploring unknown country.  One night they were sitting by their campfire playing cards when suddenly one threw up his cards, tore his hair and beat his breast in terrible agony.  ‘What’s the matter?’ cried the other.  ‘Woe, woe,’ said the first.  ’To-day was the Day of Atonement! and we have eaten and gone on as usual.’  ‘Oh, don’t take on so,’ said his friend.  ’After all, Heaven will take into consideration that we lost count of the Jewish calendar and didn’t mean to be so wicked.  And we can make up for it by fasting to-morrow.’

“‘Oh, no!  Not for me,’ said the first.  ’To-day was the Day of Atonement.’”

All laughed, the Reb appreciating most keenly the sly dig at his race.  He had a kindly sense of human frailty.  Jews are very fond of telling stories against themselves—­for their sense of humor is too strong not to be aware of their own foibles—­but they tell them with closed doors, and resent them from the outside.  They chastise themselves because they love themselves, as members of the same family insult one another.  The secret is, that insiders understand the limitations of the criticism, which outsiders are apt to take in bulk.  No race in the world possesses a richer anecdotal lore than the Jews—­such pawky, even blasphemous humor, not understandable of the heathen, and to a suspicious mind Pinchas’s overflowing cornucopia of such would have suggested a prior period of Continental wandering from town to town, like the Minnesingers of the middle ages, repaying the hospitality of his Jewish entertainers with a budget of good stories and gossip from the scenes of his pilgrimages.

“Do you know the story?” he went on, encouraged by Simcha’s smiling face, “of the old Reb and the Havdolah?  His wife left town for a few days and when she returned the Reb took out a bottle of wine, poured some into the consecration cup and began to recite the blessing.  ’What art thou doing?’ demanded his wife in amaze.’  I am making Havdolah,’ replied the Reb.  ‘But it is not the conclusion of a festival to-night,’ she said.  ‘Oh, yes, it is,’ he answered.  ’My Festival’s over.  You’ve come back.’”

The Reb laughed so much over this story that Simcha’s brow grew as the solid Egyptian darkness, and Pinchas perceived he had made a mistake.

“But listen to the end,” he said with a creditable impromptu.  “The wife said—­’No, you’re mistaken.  Your Festival’s only beginning.  You get no supper.  It’s the commencement of the Day of Atonement.’”

Simcha’s brow cleared and the Reb laughed heartily.

“But I don’t seethe point, father,” said Levi.

“Point!  Listen, my son.  First of all he was to have a Day of Atonement, beginning with no supper, for his sin of rudeness to his faithful wife.  Secondly, dost thou not know that with us the Day of Atonement is called a festival, because we rejoice at the Creator’s goodness in giving us the privilege of fasting?  That’s it, Pinchas, isn’t it?”