"You need not fear," said Sugarman, resentfully. "It is not likely I shall be able to persuade him to take so economical a father-in-law. So you will be none the worse for promising.""Be it so," said Eliphaz, with a gesture of weariness, and he started his machine again.
"Twenty-seven pounds ten, remember," said Sugarman, above the whir.
Eliphaz nodded his head, whirring his wheel-work louder. "And paid before the wedding, mind."The machine took no notice.
"Before the wedding, mind," repeated Sugarman. "Before we go under the canopy.""Go now, go now!" grunted Eliphaz, with a gesture of impatience. "It shall all be well." And the white-haired head bowed immovably over its work.
In the evening Rose extracted from her father the motive of Sugarman's visit, and confessed that the idea was to her liking.
"But dost thou think he will have me, little father?" she asked, with cajoling eyes.
"Any one would have my Rose."
"Ah, but Leibel is different. So many years he has sat at my side and said nothing.""He had his work to think of. He is a good, saving youth.""At this very moment Sugarman is trying to persuade him--not so? I suppose he will want much money.""Be easy, my child." And he passed his discoloured hand over her hair. Sugarman turned up the next day, and reported that Leibel was unobtainable under thirty pounds, and Eliphaz, weary of the contest, called over Leibel, till that moment carefully absorbed in his scientific chalk marks, and mentioned the thing to him for the first time. "I am not a man to bargain," Eliphaz said, and so he gave the young man his tawny hand, and a bottle of rum sprang from somewhere, and work was suspended for five minutes, and the "hands" all drank amid surprised excitement.
Sugarman's visits had prepared them to congratulate Rose; but Leibel was a shock.
The formal engagement was marked by even greater junketing, and at last the marriage day came. Leibel was resplendent in a diagonal frockcoat, cut by his own hand; and Rose stepped from the cab a medley of flowers, fairness, and white silk, and behind her came two bridesmaids,--her sisters,--a trio that glorified the spectator-strewn pavement outside the synagogue. Eliphaz looked almost tall in his shiny high hat and frilled shirt-front. Sugarman arrived on foot, carrying red-socked little Ebenezer tucked under his arm.
Leibel and Rose were not the only couple to be disposed of, for it was the thirty-third day of the Omer--a day fruitful in marriages.
But at last their turn came. They did not, however, come in their turn,and their special friends among the audience wondered why they had lost their precedence. After several later marriages had taken place a whisper began to circulate. The rumour of a hitch gained ground steadily, and the sensation was proportionate. And, indeed, the rose was not to be picked without a touch of the thorn.
Gradually the facts leaked out, and a buzz of talk and comment ran through the waiting synagogue. Eliphaz had not paid up!
At first he declared he would put down the money immediately after the ceremony. But the wary Sugarman, schooled by experience, demanded its instant delivery on behalf of his other client. Hard pressed, Eliphaz produced ten sovereigns from his trousers-pocket, and tendered them on account. These Sugarman disdainfully refused, and the negotiations were suspended. The bridegroom's party was encamped in one room, the bride's in another, and after a painful delay Eliphaz sent an emissary to say that half the amount should be forthcoming, the extra five pounds in a bright new Bank of England note. Leibel, instructed and encouraged by Sugarman, stood firm.