ather analogous to attendance at a lecture--they would
simply have to listen to speeches. Besides it would be but a black
Sabbath at home with a barren larder, and they had already been to
synagogue. Thus degenerates ancient piety in the stress of modern social
problems. Some of the men had not even changed their everyday face for
their Sabbath countenance by washing it. Some wore collars, and shiny
threadbare garments of dignified origin, others were unaffectedly
poverty-stricken with dingy shirt-cuffs peeping out of frayed sleeve
edges and unhealthily colored scarfs folded complexly round their necks.
A minority belonged to the Free-thinking party, but the majority only
availed themselves of Wolf's services because they were indispensable.
For the moment he was the only possible leader, and they were
sufficiently Jesuitic to use the Devil himself for good ends.

Though Wolf would not give up a Friday-night meeting--especially
valuable, as permitting of the attendance of tailors who had not yet
struck--Pinchas's politic advice had not failed to make an impression.
Like so many reformers who have started with blatant atheism, he was
beginning to see the insignificance of irreligious dissent as compared
with the solution of the social problem, and Pinchas's seed had fallen
on ready soil. As a labor-leader, pure and simple, he could count upon a
far larger following than as a preacher of militant impiety. He resolved
to keep his atheism in the background for the future and devote himself
to the enfranchisement of the body before tampering with the soul. He
was too proud ever to acknowledge his indebtedness to the poet's
suggestion, but he felt grateful to him all the same.

"My brothers," he said in Yiddish, when his turn came to speak. "It
pains me much to note how disunited we are. The capitalists, the
Belcovitches, would rejoice if they but knew all that is going on. Have
we not enemies enough that we must quarrel and split up into little
factions among ourselves? (Hear, hear.) How can we hope to succeed
unless we are thoroughly organized? It has come to my ears that there
are men who insinuate things even about me and before I go on further
to-night I wish to put this question to you." He paused and there was a
breathless silence. The orator threw his chest forwards and gazing
fearlessly at the assembly cried in a stentorian voice:

_"Sind sie zufrieden mit ihrer Chairman?"_ (Are you satisfied with your
chairman?)