382 FL U T TER-D UCK.
day, why should they not have a goose? They were at the thick of the busy season, and the winter promised to be bit- ter, so they could afford it.
" Nee, nee ; there are enough Festivals in our religion already," grumbled her husband, who, despite his hacking cough, had been driven to the work-table by the plentifulness of work and the scarcity of " hands."
"Almost as big a goose as herself! " whispered Emanuel Lefkovitch to his circle. He had made his peace with his wife, and was again become the centre of the work-room's gaiety. " What a bargain ! " he said aloud, clucking his tongue with admiration. And Flutter-Duck, consoled for her husband's criticism, scurried out again to have her bar- gain killed by the official slaughterer.
When she returned, doleful and indignant, with the goose still in her basket, and the news that the functionary had re- fused it Jewish execution, and pronounced it tripha (un- clean) for some minute ritual reason, she broke off her denunciation of the vendor from a sudden perception that some graver misfortune had happened in her absence.
" Nee, nee," said Lewis, when she stopped her chatter. " Decidedly God will not have us make Festival to-day. Even you must work."
"Me?" gasped Flutter-Duck.
Then she learnt that Emanuel Lefkovitch, whom she had left so gay, had been taken with acute pains — and had had to go home. And work pressed, and Flutter-Duck must under-study him in all her spare moments. She was terribly vexed — she had arranged to go and see an old crony's daughter married in the Synagogue that afternoon, and she would have to give that up, if indeed her husband did not even expect her to give up the ball in the evening. She temporarily tethered the goose's leg to a bed-post by a long
