Reuven: Well, here we are, in Reb Wolf's house again... a butcher's a very good living.... don't count up what he's got again... I can't help it.... Zol gotter pitten we should want to be a little rich....
Duvet... check... Tow ottomans... check... Two armoires with six panels... doh und doh... 4 gas lamps... here and there und here and there.... A Zaydie clock... check... Tzvai bronze samovars... check... Three silver menorehs... check... Golden shabbos candlesticks... doh... More shabbos candlesticks... there... ayntz tzvay drei... five sets of shabbos candlesticks in the armoire!... check... They might all be gold!... giant silver b'sawmim spicebox... check...
I can't stand this... Yed'n tag seeing how they live then how I'm gonna live... Uncle Ezra is cutting off the money and we've got nothing left over... like the rich are rubbing their gold in our pawnim...
Well keyn enin vos... I might as well take a few knives again... It's not much but every one of them's a bit of silver I can bury for when we really need to pay somebody off... Und got veyst we're gonna need it... You see how meshuggeh the Bransker are... the Kowalski family vill macht mit a pogrom any day now und we're gonna hobn tsu pay the police again...
(opens drawer, starts stuffing cutlery in his pockets...)
Don't get ambityes Reuven, just a half dozen... is zex too much?... don't be a real gonif just take four... nu, they've never noticed before... nu... you've taken more than six before... come on... you might as well take eight this time.... look at this, there must be hundreds of silver cutlery here, who's gonna notice when acht go missing?... Ach gott you gotta be quieter about this...
Freu Wolf: Vos tutsu Reuven?
Reuven: Ach... mein gott Freu Wolf... I'm so sorry... (begins to panic) You're gonna fire me I completely understand... just please I'm begging you don't get the politsay involved.... there's no sense in lying about what's going on here... I got so ambitious... (begins to cry) my family is azey rizig and so poor... you know as well as I do a pogrom is coming soon...
Freu Wolf: (calming and reassuring) Reuven! Ziskeit! Don't worry teyereh! Don't you remember? I gave you all this cutlery as a gift?
Reuven: Oh....
Freu Wolf: Mein mann sees how hard you work, I see how good you are to us, to me... Mir haben dir lieb and we want everything good for you...
Reuven: Well, thank you so much Freu Wolf.
Freu Wolf: And remember? We made presents to you of all that other silverware too.
Reuven: (thinks for a moment, then dreads) Oh.
Freu Wolf: It was all geshanks. We're so grateful for everything you do around here, and we're sure you're going to be around for a langeh tzeit to help us so you can become the mensch we all know you're going to be.
(we hear the unbuckling of pants and rustling of shirts - or tzitzis. Just then the grandfather clock strikes noon and we hear twelve chimes.)
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