ourse in evil but understandable German. It was a discourse upon the
wrongs and the greatness of the Jewish people--and it was delivered by
a compact middle-aged man with a big black beard and long-lashed but
animated eyes. Beside him a very old man dozed and nodded approval. A
number of other men crowded the apartment, including several who had
helped to hold off the rioters from the court. Some could follow the
talk and ever again endorsed the speaker in Yiddish or Russian; others
listened with tantalized expressions, their brows knit, their lips
moving.

It was a discourse Benham had provoked. For now he was at the very heart
of the Jewish question, and he could get some light upon the mystery
of this great hatred at first hand. He did not want to hear tales of
outrages, of such things he knew, but he wanted to understand what was
the irritation that caused these things.

So he listened. The Jew dilated at first on the harmlessness and
usefulness of the Jews.

"But do you never take a certain advantage?" Benham threw out.

"The Jews are cleverer than the Russians. Must we suffer for that?"

The spokesman went on to the more positive virtues of his race. Benham
suddenly had that uncomfortable feeling of the Gentile who finds a bill
being made against him. Did the world owe Israel nothing for Philo,
Aron ben Asher, Solomon Gabriol, Halevy, Mendelssohn, Heine, Meyerbeer,
Rubinstein, Joachim, Zangwill? Does Britain owe nothing to Lord
Beaconsfield, Montefiore or the Rothschilds? Can France repudiate her
debt to Fould, Gaudahaux, Oppert, or Germany to Furst, Steinschneider,
Herxheimer, Lasker, Auerbach, Traube and Lazarus and Benfey?...

Benham admitted under the pressure of urgent tones and gestures that
these names did undoubtedly include the cream of humanity, but was it
not true that the Jews did press a little financially upon the inferior
peoples whose lands they honoured in their exile?

The man with the black beard took up the challenge bravely.

"They are merciful creditors," he said. "And it is their genius to
possess and control. What better stewards could you find for the wealth
of nations than the Jews? And for the honours? That always had been the
role of the Jews--stewardship. Since the days of Joseph in Egypt...."

Then in a lower voice he went on to speak of the deficiencies of the
Gentile population. He wished to be just and generous but the truth was
the truth. The Christian Russians loved drin