narrow table, covered with a white table-cloth spread with rum, gin,
biscuits and fruit, and decorated with two wax candles in tall, brass
candlesticks, stood or sat a group of swarthy, neatly-dressed Poles,
most of them in high hats. A few women wearing wigs, silk dresses, and
gold chains wound round half-washed necks, stood about outside the inner
circle. A stooping black-bearded blear-eyed man in a long threadbare
coat and a black skull cap, on either side of which hung a corkscrew
curl, sat abstractedly eating the almonds and raisins, in the central
place of honor which befits a _Maggid_. Before him were pens and ink and
a roll of parchment. This was the engagement contract.

The damages of breach of promise were assessed in advance and without
respect of sex. Whichever side repented of the bargain undertook to pay
ten pounds by way of compensation for the broken pledge. As a nation,
Israel is practical and free from cant. Romance and moonshine are
beautiful things, but behind the glittering veil are always the stern
realities of things and the weaknesses of human nature. The high
contracting parties were signing the document as Becky returned. The
bridegroom, who halted a little on one leg, was a tall sallow man named
Pesach Weingott. He was a boot-maker, who could expound the Talmud and
play the fiddle, but was unable to earn a living. He was marrying Fanny
Belcovitch because his parents-in-law would give him free board and
lodging for a year, and because he liked her. Fanny was a plump, pulpy
girl, not in the prime of youth. Her complexion was fair and her manner
lymphatic, and if she was not so well-favored as her sister, she was
more amiable and pleasant. She could sing sweetly in Yiddish and in
English, and had once been a pantomime fairy at ten shillings a week,
and had even flourished a cutlass as a midshipman. But she had long
since given up the stage, to become her father's right hand woman in the
workshop. She made coats from morning till midnight at a big machine