and then I'll take you away, and keep you with me at home. Do you
agree... you little spit- fire, eh?"

"Yes, uncle!" cried Viola.

"Then give me a kiss, Viola."

The child hesitated for a moment, then she laid her cheek upon her
uncle's face.

"Ah, now I've got you, you little spit-fire," he cried, kissing her
again and again. "Aren't you ashamed now to have snapped your uncle up
like that?"

Then after giving Ephraim some further information about the present
price of oats, and the future prospects of the crops, with a sideshot
at the chances of wool, skins, and other merchandise, he took his leave.

There was great surprise in the Ghetto when the barely fifteen-year-old
lad made his first start in business. Many made merry over "the great
merchant," but before the year was ended, the sharp-seeing eyes of the
Ghetto saw that Ephraim had "a lucky hand." Whatever he undertook he
followed up with a calmness and tact which often baffled the restless
activity of many a big dealer, with all his cuteness and trickery.
Whenever Ephraim, with his pale, sad fnce, made his appearance at a
farmstead, to negotiate for the purchase of wool, or some such matter,
it seemed as though some invisible messenger had gone before him to
soften the hearts of the farmers. "No one ever gets things as cheap as
you do," he was assured by many a farmer's wife, who had been won by the
unconscious eloquence of his dark eyes. No longer did people laugh at