Ned Doyle gets a lesson.

11 March 1902

(With spelling and grammar unimproved by the editor’s hand.)

So ez I wuz sayin', the rebbe sits dun, he duz in his big leather armchair and is stoofin' his implee-ments a’ tur-cher beck in his black leather bag, and I’s stan near the raydayter so as to worm up from the cold and damp, the steam clanging and hissin’ like a snake wot swallered a hammer.

“Me boy,” sez the divvil of a man, “Me boy, the Joosh people, are a 5000 year old tribe. Wile yer people wuz smearing themselfs with mud, livin’ in sod huts and swingin’ in trees, the Joosh people had a civvy-lie-zation, with books, and laws and joodges, and right and kindness and goodness.”

“Ah boot,” sez I. “Boot yer still cartin’ with you the tools of Satan his’seff, implee-ments of turture and croool-ty. D’ye drain tha blud of Christian children wit these tools. Is tha’ why ye fattin me oop with yep divvilish kishka and kreplach—food that soun’s like the divvil hisseff named it?”

The Rebbe larfed at this he did, his long beard flappin’ like a flag onna Firth of Joo-lie.

“Me boy, 5000 years hago, the Joos made a covvy-net with our God, a pact, a contract, tha’ in turn fer oos bein’ his chosen people, on tha eighth day affer a Joosh boy is bairn, we takes, we do, as a symbol of our covvy-net, a snip a’ the tip o’ his schmeckl.”

“Schmeckl?” sez I, “tha is anudder divvil’s word. What means this word, schmeckl?”

“Well,” sez the Rebbe, “I am supposin’ thars no nice way a sayin’ this. We cuts orf we do, the tippa his paenis. We calls it a circus-cision. And ev’ry Joosh male boy from all a’ time has had his schmeckl thus alterated and, if’n you will, thereby abridged.”

On hearing this, Dear Diary, I grabbed for me’ own schmeckl, so ez to protect it frum this divvil incarcerated.

“Ya’ keepin’ ya’ hans an yer divvil’s implee-ments away a’ me schmeckl,” I fairly screams.

Tha Rebbe commences a’ larfin’ again.

“We do hit to only Joosh boys, only eight days old. And it is na’ terture, it is a sign an’ symbol a’ our faith and covvy-net with a’ Lord.”

An’ here, Dear Diary is where I rest for the night, the candle bairns lew.