“It is more than round shoulders—­it is a hump!” cried Leibel.

“And suppose?  See how much better off you will be when you get your own machines!  We do not refuse to let camels carry our burdens because they have humps.”

“Ah, but a wife is not a camel,” said Leibel, with a sage air.

“And a cutter is not a master tailor,” retorted Sugarman.

“Enough, enough!” cried Leibel.  “I tell you, I would not have her if she were a machine warehouse.”

“There sticks something behind,” persisted Sugarman, unconvinced.

Leibel shook his head.  “Only her hump” he said with a flash of humour.

“Moses Mendelssohn had a hump,” expostulated Sugarman, reproachfully.

“Yes, but he was a heretic,” rejoined Leibel, who was not without reading.  “And then he was a man!  A man with two humps could find a wife for each.  But a woman with a hump cannot expect a husband in addition.”

“Guard your tongue from evil,” quoth the Shadchan, angrily.  “If everybody were to talk like you Leah Volcovitch would never be married at all.”

Leibel shrugged his shoulders, and reminded him that hunchbacked girls who stammered and squinted and halted on left legs were not usually led under the canopy.

“Nonsense!  Stuff!” cried Sugarman, angrily.  “That is because they do not come to me.”

“Leah Volcovitch has come to you,” said Leibel, “but she shall not come to me.”  And he rose, anxious to escape.

Instantly Sugarman gave a sigh of resignation.  “Be it so!  Then I shall have to look out for another, that’s all.”

“No, I don’t want any,” replied Leibel, quickly.

Sugarman stopped eating.  “You don’t want any?” he cried.  “But you came to me for one?”

“I—­I—­know,” stammered Leibel.  “But I’ve—­I’ve altered my mind.”

“One needs Hillel’s patience to deal with you!” cried Sugarman.  “But I shall charge you, all the same, for my trouble.  You cannot cancel an order like this in the middle!  No, no!  You can play fast and loose with Leah Volcovitch, but you shall not make a fool of me.”

“But if I don’t want one?” said Leibel, sullenly.

Sugarman gazed at him with a cunning look of suspicion.  “Didn’t I say there was something sticking behind?”

Leibel felt guilty.  “But whom have you got in your eye?” he inquired, desperately.

“Perhaps you may have some one in yours!” naively answered Sugarman.

Leibel gave a hypocritic long-drawn “U-m-m-m!  I wonder if Rose Green—­where I work—­” he said, and stopped.

“I fear not,” said Sugarman.  “She is on my list.  Her father gave her to me some months ago, but he is hard to please.  Even the maiden herself is not easy, being pretty.”

“Perhaps she has waited for some one,” suggested Leibel.

Sugarman’s keen ear caught the note of complacent triumph.

“You have been asking her yourself!” he exclaimed, in horror-stricken accents.