“I’ve already introduced you to two new characters. Now I want you to meet a third, a fellow by the name of Froike-Sheygetz. He’s a type too, and has a role to play in our story. In fact, there wouldn’t be one without him.
“Froyke-Sheygetz, don’t you know, is one of a kind, a hail-fellow-well-met, as they say, who dresses half like a Hasid and half like a Parisian dandy. He wears a long black gaberdine with a derby on his head, is partial to bright-red ties, and goes about with the fringes of his tallis koton hanging out of his shirt. There’s a rumor around town that he’s involved with a woman, and another man’s wife at that … yet when it’s prayer time in the synagogue, he’s there faster than a bat out of hell. In a word, he’s God’s own rascal! What does he do for a living? He’s a one-percenter: he brokers checks, loans, IOUs. A lot of rubles pass through his hands — thousands and thousands of them. And he’s the one person Yoyl Tashker ever had complete trust in. When it comes to lending money, don’t you know, even handing over a hundred gives Tashker the willies, but with the green light from Froyke, you could consider it as good as done. Personally, though, I wouldn’t jump from that to the conclusion that our Froyke is a model of financial integrity. He’s a shrewd, cunning son-of-a-gun, and one who doesn’t take no for an answer. I’d rather wind up in hell itself than in his clutches! Efrayim Katz, by the way, is his real name — and now you know why he’s called Froyke-Sheygetz.
“Well, having introduced my three characters, I can get on with the plot. Our story takes place during last summer’s fires, when the whole town of Drozhne, God save us, burned to the ground. Letters, telegrams, appeals for help — all began pouring in: we should send as much as we could as fast as we could, because a town full of Jews was sleeping in the streets and going hungry. I don’t have to tell you what a yammering there was in Heysen. Jews, have a heart! How can you just sit there? We have to do something! Between this, that, and the other thing it was decided to appoint a fund-raising committee. Who was on it? Myself, naturally, along with a few other leading citizens — among them, don’t you know, Froyke-Sheygetz, because we needed someone who wouldn’t take no for an answer. And so we began to pass around the basket. Who did we pass it to first? To our better-heeled Jews, of course. Which brought us to Yoyl Tashker. ‘A good morning to you, Reb Yoyl!’ ‘And a good morning to you! What can I do for you? Have a seat.’ You couldn’t have asked for a finer reception. Tashker, don’t you know, is the very soul of hospitality: knock on his door and he’ll ask you right in, bring you a chair, make you sit down, talk to you about anything at all … as long as it isn’t money. Try raising that subject, and his whole expression changes: one eye slams shut and the entire left side of his face begins to twitch as though he had the palsy. I tell you, it’s painful just to look at him! But that’s the sort of fellow he is.
“Let’s see now, what act was I up to? Yes; our committee called on Tashker. ‘Good morning, Reb Yoyl.’ ‘Good morning to you. Have a seat. What can I do for you?’ ‘We’ve come to ask for a contribution.’ Down goes one eye, and his cheek gives a jerk that I wouldn’t wish on my knee. ‘A contribution? Just like that, you want a contribution?’ Well, Froyke-Sheygetz didn’t take that for an answer. ‘It’s for a good cause, Reb Yoyl,’ he says, ‘the best there could be. You must have heard about it. A whole town, it shouldn’t happen to us, has burned to the ground. Drozhne …’ ‘What?’ cried Reb Yoyl. ‘Drozhne’s burned down? What are you talking about?! I’m ruined! How can it possibly have gone and burned, with all the uncollected debts I have there? I’m wiped out!..’ There was nothing Froyke didn’t do to convince him that his loans were perfectly safe, because the fire had broken out in the poorest neighborhoods where no one could afford to borrow money — but go try explaining something like that to someone who doesn’t want to listen! Tashker just wrung his hands, ran around the room like a madman, and kept moaning out loud, ‘It’s my luck! I’m wiped out! I can’t stand to hear another word! It’s the death of me! It’s more than a body can bear!..’
“How much longer were we going to sit there? We got up, said ‘Good day, Reb Yoyl,’ and walked out. Once we were in the street again, Froyke-Sheygetz said to us, ‘Listen here, all of you: if I don’t make that bastard cough up a hundred rubles for the Drozhne relief fund, my name isn’t Efrayim Katz!’ ‘Are you crazy, Froyke?’ we all said to him. ‘What’s it to you?’ said Froyke. ‘If I tell you he’s giving me the money, it’s as good as in my pocket already, because Efrayim Katz is damn well my name!’
“He meant every word of it, too. Listen to what happened. A few days later our rich friend Yoyl Tashker was taking the train to the Tulchin fair. His neighbor Kompanyevitch was aboard too, as were a whole lot of Jews from Tolchin and Uman. There wasn’t a seat to be had, and everyone was talking at the top of his voice as usual — everyone, that is, except for Yoyl Tashker, who sat in a corner as usual too, reading a religious book. What did he have to talk about, after all, with any of those Jews? And especially with that degenerate Kompanyevitch, whom he couldn’t even stand the sight of. And just as though to get his goat, don’t you know, Kompanyevitch had gone and sat right across from him and was giving him the silent stare! Great God Almighty, Reb Yoyl kept thinking, who will rescue me from this pig eater? To move to the second-class car was a sinful waste of good money, but to have to keep looking at the nude chin of an assassin who had the very Devil in his eyes was hardly a more tolerable prospect … Only just then, don’t you know, the prayed-for miracle occurred: whom did God make board the train at the very next station if not someone Tashker knew — in fact, none other than our good friend Froyke-Sheygetz! The sight of Froyke made Tashker feel like a new man; at last there was someone to have a word with. ‘Where to?’ he asked Froyke. ‘Where to?’ Froyke asked him. And so they began to chat. About what? About everything under the sun — until they arrived at a topic that was close to Yoyl Tashker’s heart: the sorry state of today’s youth. Worthless young men, shameless young women — what could the world be coming to? Froyke-Sheygetz was in perfect agreement; in fact, he even chipped in with a story of his own about a newlywed from Uman who had run away from her husband to take up with a Russian officer. Then he told another about a bridegroom who had married two different women in two different cities, and still another about a youngster who, when struck by his father for refusing to put on his tefillin, had put up his fists and fought back. ‘What, hit his own father?!’ That caused an uproar in the car. Everyone was aghast — and no one more than Yoyl Tashker. ‘What did I tell you? My very word! It’s sheer anarchy. Jewish children won’t even pray any more! They won’t even put on their tefillin …’