A Kid for Two Farthings Read Online Free Page B

Levenson, the corsetière, who did a bit of match-making on the side, got him over to Hoffman’s for Friday night supper, and in no time Shmule found himself engaged to Hoffman’s daughter Sonia. That was his number one trouble, for although a promise is all very well in its way, what is the use of being engaged if you haven’t got a ring to prove it? And Sonia hadn’t a ring.
    That ring. Sonia didn’t forget it for a minute. In the evenings or at week-ends when they practised weight-lifting together and catch-as-catch-can, she never forgot. Shmule might say, ‘I pulled a muscle’ that’s all. Just ‘I pulled a muscle.’ –
    ‘You got a muscle?’ Sonia would ask, insinuating. ‘Don’t worry about me,’ Shmule would tell her, ‘I got enough muscles.’
    ‘I forget,’ Sonia would answer, lifting up the heavy bar; ‘it’s diamonds you are a bit short of just now.’ Always on for a ring.
    Do Sonia justice, the other girls in the blouse factory where she worked wouldn’t let her forget. Every day one or other of them tried to needle her about the ring. ‘Funny thing,’ Dora the blonde – blonde! – said, ‘funny thing a fellow proposes but no ring. You sure, Sonia, he said marry ?’ And even worse. Sometimes girls ran up and down showing off the rings their fellows had given them, and then Sonia felt so small. But she couldn’t tell Shmule all that. The only thing to do was to keep at him, because, give credit, a girl engaged is after all entitled to a ring. Say what you like, right is right.
    Because of that ring Shmule went in for the wrestling. Before that, he took three pound seventeen he saved in a slate club the baker ran, and bought a gold ring with a little tiny diamond in it. Shmule went into fourteen shops until he found a ring for that money, because everyone knows nothing but diamonds is right for engagements. But he could have saved himself the trouble. He went round to Sonia that night, pleased as punch, and when they were sitting in the front room just as Sonia was about to start nagging him, he jumped up, ran round the room, and shouted, ‘Say no more – you got yourself a ring.’ He gave her the ring and held his face forward for a kiss.
    Who can satisfy women? A fine kiss that Sonia gave him. With the back of her hand she gave him a slap on the cheek and burst out crying.
    ‘Two years I’ve waited you should make me respectable with a ring, and what do you give me in the end? A little tiny bit of rubbish, I wouldn’t be seen dead in it. Why did I ever say yes to you? Why am I such a fool? Why did I let you take me to Epping Forest that time?’ Because that was something else she never let Shmule forget, although there had been no trouble.
    To cut a long story short, Shmule explained to Mr Kandinsky, Sonia couldn’t wear that ring because such a small diamond after such a long time would make her look ridiculous. The other girls might say, insinuating, ‘For such a small ring you must wait two years?’ And that was why, answering Mr Kandinsky’s question, ‘Why be a wrestler?’ Shmule took up wrestling. Wrestling he could win enough money to buy Sonia a large ring, and then perhaps she would stop nagging him.
    ‘Why don’t you just marry the girl straightaway, and save yourself trouble?’ Mr Kandinsky asked. ‘Surely this is a practical solution?’
    ‘You think I haven’t tried?’ said Shmule. ‘She won’t let me come near her until she gets that ring.’
    ‘Why don’t you marry someone who’s got a ring already?’ asked Joe.
    ‘What can you know about these things?’ asked Shmule.
    ‘My mother hasn’t got a diamond ring,’ Joe said.
    ‘Do me a favour,’ Shmule replied, dismissing the whole matter. ‘I got enough worries. This dreaded Python Macklin I got to fight soon is no joke.’
    But although Shmule had worries of his own, he helped Joe to build a house for the unicorn. They got four orange-boxes and a hammer and some nails, and while Shmule