Russian army and you were my 'little uncle.' I'll pay you what I owe you and leave me alone."

"As if I were uneasy about those few dollars!" he said, ingratiatingly

"I know you are not. That's just it."

He took fire. "What am I after, then? You think I get rich on your work, don't you?"

Our altercation waxed violent. At one point he was about to lapse into a conciliatory tone again, but his dignity prevailed

"I would not keep you if you begged me," he declared. "I hate to deal with an ingrate. But I want my money at once." "I shall pay it to you when work begins."

"No, sirrah. I want it at once." An ugly scene followed. He seized me by my coat lapels and threatened to have me arrested.

Finally the restaurant-keeper and Gussie, the homely finisher girl whom we all respected, made peace between us, and things were arranged more or less amicably

I obtained employment in an "inside" place, a factory owned by twin brothers named Manheimer

I was in high feather. My sense of advancement and independence reminded me of the days when I had just been graduated from the Talmudic Academy and went on studying as an "independent scholar." I had not, however, begun to work in my new place when a general strike of the trade was declared

CHAPTER VII

THE Cloak-makers' Union had been a weak, insignificant organization, but at the call for a general strike it suddenly burst into life. There was a great rush for membership cards. Everybody seemed to be enthusiastic, full of fight. To me, however, the strike was a sheer calamity. I laid it all to my own hard luck. It seemed as though the trouble had been devised for the express purpose of preventing me from being promoted to full pay; for the express purpose of upsetting my financial calculations in connection with my college plans. Everybody was saying that prices were outrageously low, that the manufacturers were taking advantage of the weakness of the union, and that they must be brought to terms. All this was lost upon me. The question of prices did not interest me, because the wages I was going to receive were by far the highest I had ever been paid. But the main thing was that I looked upon the whole business of making cloaks as a temporary occupation.

My mind was full of my books and my college dreams. All I