Mr. Monday and other tales of Jewish Amsterdam

YESTERDAY NEVER RETURNS 175

"Come to my house tomorrow evening," Mr. Sheep had agreed.

That evening Sol went, freshly washed and nervous. He had an idea, he said, to start a shop. In the couple of years at the station he had looked around and heard a few things.To obtain a licence for a buffet at the station was very difficult and he had another idea, a much grander one. He wanted to start a shop in Weesper Street, a small shop with practically no overhead expenses. He would sell rolls and beef of first-rate quality. But that was not all, in the diamond factories there were messenger boys and apprentices who were sent out to buy bread rolls and cakes for the polishers. They bought them in different places but he, Sol, had an idea for monopolising that trade. How? Dead simple, he would be content with a smaller profit and would give the messenger boys a percentage of what they bought from him as a kickback.

The only problem was that he did not have the money to start with, so could Mr. Sheep provide him with a loan of say a thousand guilders. Actually, a loan was not the proper word, Mr. Sheep would get an interest in the business.

"No," Mr. Sheep said firmly. "I wouldn't think of it. I am not a millionaire, and the few guilders that I have are tied in bonds and houses which I cannot sell. I'm sorry, my boy, but you won't get a cent out of me."

The whole affair would have come to nothing if Mrs. Sheep had not been present at this conversation. When her husband announced so curtly that he would not sink a cent in that roll and brisket shop, she said "Listen, what you do with your money is your affair. But I myself have a little nest egg, not much, but just enough to invest in something