an appropriate festival even for the
most heterodox among them if we could strike oft their chains in the
interim. But it seems impossible to get unity among them--a large
section appears to mistrust me, though I swear to you, Pinchas, I am
actuated by nothing but an unselfish desire for their good. May this
morsel of sandwich choke me if I have ever been swayed by anything but
sympathy with their wrongs. And yet you saw that malicious pamphlet that
was circulated against me in Yiddish--silly, illiterate scribble."

"Oh, no!" said Pinchas. "It was vair beautiful; sharp as de sting of de
hornet. But vat can you expect? Christ suffered. All great benefactors
suffer. Am _I_ happy? But it is only your own foolishness that you must
tank if dere is dissension in de camp. De _Gomorah_ says ve muz be vize,
_chocham_, ve muz haf tact. See vat you haf done. You haf frighten avay
de ortodox fool-men. Dey are oppressed, dey sweat--but dey tink deir God
make dem sweat. Why you tell dem, no? Vat mattairs? Free dem from hunger
and tirst first, den freedom from deir fool-superstitions vill come of
itself. Jeshurun vax fat and kick? Hey? You go de wrong vay."

"Do you mean I'm to pretend to be _froom_," said Simon Wolf.

"And ven? Vat mattairs? You are a fool, man. To get to de goal one muz
go crooked vays. Ah, you have no stadesmanship. You frighten dem. You
lead processions vid bands and banners on _Shabbos_ to de _Shools_. Many
who vould be glad to be delivered by you tremble for de heavenly
lightning. Dey go not in de procession. Many go when deir head is on
fire--afterwards, dey take fright and beat deir breasts. Vat vill
happen? De ortodox are de majority; in time dere vill come a leader who
vill be, or pretend to be, ortodox as veil as socialist. Den vat become
of you? You are left vid von, two, tree ateists--not enough to make
_Minyan_. No, ve muz be _chocham_, ve muz take de men as ve find dem.
God has made two classes of men--vise-men and fool-men. Dere! is one
vise-man to a million fool-men--and he sits on deir head and dey support
him. If dese fool-men vant to go to _Shool_ and to fast on _Yom Kippur_,
vat for you make a feast of pig and shock dem, so dey not believe in
your socialism? Ven you vant to eat pig, you do it here, like ve do now,
in private. In public, ve spit out ven ve see pig. Ah, you are a
fool-man. I am a stadesman, a politician. I vill be de Machiavelli of de
movement."

"Ah, Pinchas, you are a devil of