A Kid for Two Farthings Read Online Free Page A

don’t mind leading him,’ Joe said, ‘if you’re a bit tired.’
    Back at the workshop Mr Kandinsky was fixing the zip fastener into the trousers because, after all, the customer is always right, even when he’s wrong. He was talking to the baker from the corner. ‘You know,’ he was saying, as Joe came in leading the unicorn, ‘the black bread agrees with me better, only I get the heartburn something terrible.’
    ‘I’m telling you,’ the baker said, ‘it’s the black bread. I’m a baker, shouldn’t I know?’
    ‘Hello, Joe,’ Mr Kandinsky said, ‘what you got there?’
    ‘Cripple, ain’t it?’ said the baker.
    ‘It’ll grow,’ the man said.
    ‘Can you lend me five shillings to pay for this unicorn, Mr Kandinsky?’ Joe said.
    ‘For a unicorn,’ said Mr Kandinsky, reaching for the box he kept his change in, ‘five shillings is tukke cheap.’
    Later, Mr Kandinsky made a careful examination. ‘Clearly,’ he said, ‘this unicorn is without doubt a unicorn, Joe; unmistakably it is a genuine unicorn, Shmule. It has only one small horn budding on its head.’
    ‘Let’s see,’ said Shmule. Then after he looked and felt the horn bud he said, ‘Granted, only one horn.’
    ‘Second and still important,’ continued Mr Kandinsky, ‘Joe went to the market to buy a unicorn. That is so, Joe?’
    Joe nodded.
    ‘Consequently,’ Mr Kandinsky continued excitedly, ‘it follows that he wouldn’t buy something that wasn’t a unicorn. In which case, he bought a unicorn, which is what this is.’
    ‘There’s a lot in what you say,’ replied Shmule, ‘although it looks like a baby goat; a little bit crippled, that’s all – not like a horse, which is, after all, a unicorn except for the horn.’
    ‘And this has a horn, yes or no?’ asked Mr Kandinsky.
    ‘Definitely,’ replied Shmule, ‘it has an undeveloped horn.’
    ‘One horn only?’ asked Mr Kandinsky.
    ‘One horn,’ agreed Shmule.
    ‘So,’ concluded Mr Kandinsky, ‘it’s not a unicorn?’
    ‘What do I know?’ said Shmule, shrugging his shoulders. The shrug reminded him of his shoulder-muscles, so he went on flexing and unflexing them for a while.
    Then Mr Kandinsky sent Joe to the greengrocery to buy a cabbage and some carrots. ‘And a couple of heads of lettuce as well,’ he added. ‘What he don’t eat, we can put in the stew.’
    While Joe was gone, Mr Kandinsky examined the unicorn again, while Shmule practised a half-Nelson on himself.
    As he ran his hand over the unicorn, Mr Kandinsky sang:
    ‘ One kid, one kid, which my father bought for two farthings .’
    Shmule looked around. ‘That’s what I say,’ he said. ‘A kid.’
    ‘What harm will it do, Shmule,’ asked Mr Kandinsky, ‘if we make it a unicorn? Oy,’ he added, ‘he really is crippled.’ Sadly beating his fist on the bench Mr Kandinsky sang:
    ‘ Then came the Holy One, blessed be He ,
     The angel of death to destroy utterly
     That struck down the butcher
     That slew the ox
     That drank the water
     That quenched the fire
     That burnt the stick
     That beat the dog
     That bit the cat
     That ate the kid .’
    Shmule’s low voice joined Mr Kandinsky’s cracked one in the chorus. Together they finished the song.
    ‘ One kid, one kid, which my father bought for two farthings .’

3
    All the excitement about the unicorn was one thing, but Shmule had his own troubles. Second, there was the dreaded Python Macklin, but first there was Sonia.
    Sonia was the daughter of Hoffman the butcher, and maybe plenty of meat was the reason why she was the strongest girl between Bow Church and the Aldgate Pump. She was four inches taller than Shmule, and she had only three muscles less than him, and those muscles anyway it didn’t suit a girl to have. She could lift Shmule as easily as he could lift Joe, and though she had squinty eyes and a bad temper, she had a very good figure. One day, Mrs