Schnapper Elle might be a little vain and small of mind, but that she was an honest, generous soul, and did much good to many folk in need.
"Particularly to Nose Star," snapped Puppy Reiss. And all who knew of this tender tie laughed all the louder.
"Don't you know," added Puppy spitefully, "that Nose Star now sleeps in Schnapper Elle's house! But just look at Susy Flörsheim down there, wearing the necklace which Daniel Fläsch pawned to her husband! Fläsch's wife is vexed at it—that is plain. And now she is talking to Mrs. Flörsheim. How amiably they shake hands!—and hate one another like Midian and Moab! How sweetly they smile on one another! Oh, you dear souls, don't eat one another up out of pure tenderness! I'll just steal up and listen to them!"
And so, like a sneaking wild cat, Puppy Reiss stole along and heard the two women mutually bewailing to one another how they had worked all the past week to clean up the house and scour the kitchen things, and all they had to do before Passover, so that not a crumb of leavened bread stuck to anything. And such troubles as they had baking the unleavened bread! Mrs. Fläsch had bitter griefs over this—for she had no end of trouble over it in the public bakery, for according to the ticket which she drew she
