n issue with you. The men you allude to are elected
not because they are rich, but because they are good men of business and
most of the work to be done is financial."

"Exactly," said Sidney Graham, in sinister agreement. "I have always
maintained that the United Synagogue could be run as a joint-stock
company for the sake of a dividend, and that there wouldn't be an atom
of difference in the discussions if the councillors were directors. I do
believe the pillars of the community figure the Millenium as a time when
every Jew shall have enough to eat, a place to worship in, and a place
to be buried in. Their State Church is simply a financial system, to
which the doctrines of Judaism happen to be tacked on. How many of the
councillors believe in their Established Religion? Why, the very beadles
of their synagogues are prone to surreptitious shrimps and unobtrusive
oysters! Then take that institution for supplying _kosher_ meat. I am
sure there are lots of its Committee who never inquire into the
necrologies of their own chops and steaks, and who regard kitchen
Judaism as obsolete. But, all the same, they look after the finances
with almost fanatical zeal. Finance fascinates them. Long after Judaism
has ceased to exist, excellent gentlemen will be found regulating its
finances."

There was that smile on the faces of the graver members of the party
which arises from reluctance to take a dangerous speaker seriously.

Sidney Graham was one of those favorites of society who are allowed
Touchstone's license. He had just as little wish to reform, and just as
much wish to abuse society as society has to be reformed and abused. He
was a dark, bright-eyed young artist with a silky moustache. He had
lived much in Paris, where he studied impressionism and perfected his
natural talent for _causerie_ and his inborn preference for the
hedonistic view of life. Fortunately he had plenty of money, for he was
a cousin of Raphael Leon on the mother's side, and the remotest twigs of
the Leon genealogical tree bear apples of gold. His real name was
Abrahams, which is a shade too Semitic. Sidney was the black sheep of
the family; good-natured to the core and artistic to the finger-tips,
he was an avowed infidel in a world where avowal is the unpardonable
sin. He did not even pretend to fast on the Day of Atonement. Still
Sidney Graham was a good deal talked of in artistic circles, his name
was often in the newspapers, and so more orthodox p