At last there was nothing but an aching china blank.

The men looked round the table for something else to "_nash_," but everywhere was the same depressing desolation.

Only in the centre of the table towered in awful intact majesty the great _Bar-mitzvah_ cake, like some mighty sphinx of stone surveying the ruins of empires, and the least reverent shrank before its austere gaze.

But at last the Shalotten _Shammos_ shook off his awe and stretched out his hand leisurely towards the cake, as became the master of ceremonies.

But when Sugarman the _Shadchan_ beheld his hand moving like a creeping flame forward, he sprang towards him, as the tigress springs when the hunter threatens her cub.