Ghetto Comedies. Israel Zangwill
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all sense of proportion, ignorant of the outside world, his sole knowledge filtering through Jo-burgh?"'
As S. Cohn made another dramatic pause, it was suddenly borne in on his wife with a stab of insight that he was reading a description of himself—nay, of herself, of her whole race, hidden in the great world, awaiting some vague future of glory that never came. The important voice of her husband broke again upon her reflections:
'"He has held many nights of supplication to his fetish, and is still unconvinced that his God of Battles is asleep."' The reader chuckled, and a broad smile overspread the synagogue lobby. '"They are brave—oh, yes, but it is not what we mean by it—they are good fighters, because they have Dutch blood at the back of them, and a profound contempt for us. Their whole life has been spent on the open veldt (we are always fighting them on somebody's farm, who knows every inch of the ground), and they never risk anything except in the trap sort of manœuvres. The brave rush of our Tommies is unknown to them, and their slim nature would only see the idiocy of walking into a death-trap, cool as in a play. Were there ever two races less alike?"' wound up the youthful philosopher in his tent. '"I really do not see how they are to live together after the war."'
'That's easy enough,' S. Cohn had already commented to his wife as oracularly as if she did not read the same morning paper. 'Intermarriage! In a generation or two there will be one fine Anglo-African race. That's the solution—mark my words. And you can tell the boy as much—only don't say I told you to write to him.'
'Father says I'm to tell you intermarriage is the solution,' Mrs. Cohn wrote obediently. 'He really is getting much softer towards you.'
'Tell father that's nonsense,' Simon wrote back. 'The worst individuals we have to deal with come from a Boer mother and an English father, deposited here by the first Transvaal war.'
S. Cohn snorted angrily at the message. 'That was because there were two Governments—he forgets there will be only one United Empire now.'
He was not appeased till Private Cohn was promoted, and sent home a thrilling adventure, which the proud reader was persuaded by the lobby to forward to the communal organ. The organ asked for a photograph to boot. Then S. Cohn felt not only Gabbai, but town councillor again.
This wonderful letter, of which S. Cohn distributed printed copies to the staff of the Emporium with a bean-feast air, ran:
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