Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: The Conquest of flagon Pittrick. THEY were five in number, but all of them lumped together would hardly have made more than the bulk of a large-sized man. Nevertheless, black wrath was seething in their bosoms as pitch in a tar-churner's cauldron. They were sitting on the hither slope of the hill where the forest began, and where the trees stood up proud and sturdy, as though they knew they were the advance-guard of the great army behind. " What good did you do yourselves by driving away old Tobiah ?" Aaron Pittrick was saying. " Did I not always tell you, ' Let him alone ; don't play tricks on him; you don't know whom you may get in his place' ? " " What, we drove him away ?" said Leyb Kutchk, indignantly. " Were not all our tricks of your devising ? Of course, it wasn't you who suggested, in the end, that we should smear his chair with glue, and then you say it's our fault he would not stay with us longer." " I won't deny it," said Aaron, gravely; " I did suggest it; but then I never thought you would be such donkeys as to take me seriously. Anyhow, did we not have a six-weeks' holiday before they found another in Tobiah's place ? The old rascal went about the whole country and spoilt our reputation thoroughly." " And now we must pay for it," grumbled Itchki, Leyb's brother. " We haven't had an off-day for three months—not even on Rosh Hodesh or on Fast Days. It's nothing now but grind, grind, grind, week in, week out. Does he think we are the Talmud School at Volesen, and does he want to make a Rambam out of every one of us ? " " I don't think you have done us much of a service, Aaron," interposed Reuben Spitzig. " Since Avrom Peltzer has been our schoolmaster I have had no peace at home. Every day there's a different misfortune. ' Avrom Peltzer told me you... --This text refers to the Paperback edition.