It was an intolerably painful
experience for the self-centred and self-controlled Samuel; and
after a few months of this acute and humiliating suffering he was
prepared to accept help from almost any course.
At this point Rosenblatt, who had been keeping a watchful eye upon
the course of events, intervened.
"Samuel, my boy," he said one winter night when the store was
closed for the day, "you are acting the fool. You are letting
a little Slovak girl make a game of you."
"I attend to my own business, all the same," growled Samuel.
"You do, Samuel, my boy, you do. But you make me sorry for you,
and ashamed."
Samuel grunted, unwilling to acknowledge even partial defeat to the
man whom he had beaten more than once in his own game.
"You desire to have that little girl, Samuel, and yet you are
afraid of her."
But Samuel only snarled and swore.
"You forget she is a Galician girl."
"She is Russian," interposed Samuel, "and she is of good blood."
"Good blood!" said Rosenblatt, showing his teeth like a snarling
dog, "good blood! The blood of a murdering Nihilist jail bird!"
"She is of good Russian blood," said Samuel with an ugly look in
his face, "and he is a liar who says she is not.
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