Nisel Lipiczany, his teeth chattering, sat high on the box, with a blanket over his shoulders. From his perch the boy was the first to see over the rise: there was the barn, the mansion, and the glass-covered wall.

At the gate stood two armed members of the Elder’s Elite Guard. What a surprise to see that they had the brown mare between them, and were even feeding it sugar that had been pressed into lumps. These two men, the exporter Szpilfogel and Bass, a former tanner, came to attention and gave Muszkat a familiar wave. A good sign, surely. The boys pushed the wagon forward and Szpilfogel, a pure mesomorphic type, backed the runaway horse into her harness. Then Bass slid the large bolt from the gate and beckoned the funeral party through.

Suddenly there was a kind of muffled explosion and the whole hearse shook on its springs. The two guards looked at each other. “What’s that?” Szpilfogel asked.

“Ha! Ha!” went Szypper, pretending to wipe his nose. “I must have caught a cold.”

Then, from inside the wagon, the same loud report echoed again. Clearly, a sneeze.

Szpilfogel raised his hand, palm outward, which is what policemen do all over the world to indicate stop! “Open the back of the hearse,” he ordered the driver.

Hersh Einhorn cried out. “Impossible! We have to go!”

“Muszkat!” cried Kipnis. “Shake the reins!”

But the liveryman sat there. What little there was to his brow fiercely contracted. With his knuckles he rubbed his boiled ear. Bass, the Guardsman, was pointing at him with the barrel of a gun.

Just then they all heard a voice with the accent of a Lithuanian Jew. “What’s going on here? Who is making the disturbance?”

It was, of course, the Elder. No one had seen him arrive, perhaps because his new cloak, which was black, blended into the night.

Bass threw up an arm and saluted. “Chairman Trumpelman! It’s smugglers! We caught them ourselves!”

“That is a lie! We have just come from a funeral! The funeral of Fiebig, the financier.”

“This is a provocateur!” Kipnis shouted, pointing at Bass. “He wants to turn Jew against Jew!”

At last Muszkat, after his long silence, burst out. “My stallion! I lost him! Now what do I do?”

Isaiah Trumpelman sliced through the air with his hand. “Quiet!” he commanded. At once they all fell still.

“Don’t think the Elder doesn’t know what’s going on in his Ghetto. He knows what goods are coming in. Your carrots, your beets, your butter. And fancy liqueurs! Cigars! Expensive meats! It comes over the wall, through the fences, up from holes in the ground. The pity is that innocent children are being corrupted in this dirty business. Turned into crooks! And why? To save the Ghetto? To keep people from starving? Don’t make me laugh! Everybody in my Ghetto has enough to eat! Only they have to work! To work! The Elder won’t allow Jewish loafers in the Balut! Someday an important official from Berlin—the Hunter, the Schoolmaster, maybe even the Big Man himself—will come to inspect our streets. He doesn’t want to see merchants and middlemen: he knows that kind of Jew already. But when he sees workers! Real workers! Then he will be amazed. And in his amazement he will say, Live! Live!”