Mr. Monday and other tales of Jewish Amsterdam

WAGE EARNERS 27

from the other, but the children recognise them immediately. To muff a stone means that one or more of the sixty-four surfaces does not have exactly the correct size so that it does not let the light fall through the diamond flawlessly. To botch a stone is the worst crime a person can commit.

"Father, may I try again? We can cut off half of the pear and make the stone a bit smaller."

"Smaller? Then you should hear the boss! More than half is lost because you have been muddling!"

The children use expressions of the trade in a metaphorical way. A girl comes home and tells her parents "The teacher has put that little Moppes boy next to me in class so I can help him along. He isn't out of the girdle yet."

That means that the little Moppes boy is a bit backward, because a stone which isn't out of its girdle yet is only half finished.

Although they are all diamond workers, there are significant distinctions in rank and prestige between the various categories.The cleavers form a small select group, they earn more money than the others and therefore feel themselves miles high above the riffraff. The others are jealous and they jeer "You cleavers do not really form the élite, only the Isra-élite!"

The factories are inhabited mostly by polishers and setters. The polishers put the heavy tongs with the lead shell in which the diamond is forged on the swiftly turning disk. They complain, "That setter of ours is a behayme. (Behayme is the singular of behomoth which means cattle).