knew that he had a book of tickets for the Oxbridge Music Hall, and went
there on Friday nights. Still, in spite of these facts, experience did
show that whenever Milly's camp had outsulked Malka's, the old woman's
surrender was always veiled under the formula of: "Oh Milly, I've
brought you over your clothes-brush. I just noticed it, and thought you
might be wanting it." After this, conversation was comparatively easy.

Moses hardly cared to face Malka in such a crisis of the clothes-brush.
He turned away despairingly, and was going back through the small
archway which led to the Ruins and the outside world, when a grating
voice startled his ear.

"Well, Méshe, whither fliest thou? Has my Milly forbidden thee to see
me?"

He looked back. Malka was standing at her house-door. He retraced his
steps.

"N-n-o," he murmured. "I thought you still out with your stall."

That was where she should have been, at any rate, till half an hour ago.
She did not care to tell herself, much less Moses, that she had been
waiting at home for the envoy of peace from the filial camp summoning
her to the ceremony of the Redemption of her grandson.

"Well, now thou seest me," she said, speaking Yiddish for his behoof,
"thou lookest not outwardly anxious to know how it goes with me."

"How goes it with you?"