measure. The result was six children, three girls and three _Kaddishim_.
In Gittel, Moses found a tireless helpmate. During her lifetime the
family always lived in two rooms, for she had various ways of
supplementing the household income. When in London she chared for her
cousin Malka at a shilling a day. Likewise she sewed underlinen and
stitched slips of fur into caps in the privacy of home and midnight. For
all Mrs. Ansell's industry, the family had been a typical group of
wandering Jews, straying from town to town in search of better things.
The congregation they left (every town which could muster the minimum
of ten men for worship boasted its _Kehillah_) invariably paid their
fare to the next congregation, glad to get rid of them so cheaply, and
the new _Kehillah_ jumped at the opportunity of gratifying their
restless migratory instinct and sent them to a newer. Thus were they
tossed about on the battledores of philanthropy, often reverting to
their starting-point, to the disgust of the charitable committees. Yet
Moses always made loyal efforts to find work. His versatility was
marvellous. There was nothing he could not do badly. He had been
glazier, synagogue beadle, picture-frame manufacturer, cantor, peddler,
shoemaker in all branches, coat-seller, official executioner of fowls
and cattle, Hebrew teacher, fruiterer, circumciser, professional
corpse-watcher, and now he was a tailor out of work.

Unquestionably Malka was right in considering Moses a _Schlemihl_ in
comparison with many a fellow-immigrant, who brought indefatigable hand
and subtle brain to the struggle for existence, and discarded the prop
of charity as soon as he could, and sometimes earlier.

It was as a hawker that he believed himself most gifted, and he never
lost the conviction that if he could only get a fair start, he had in
him the makings of a millionaire. Yet there was scarcely anything cheap