ou can hardly call it that. I did know him, though not exactly in a
friendly way, but for two years I have quite lost sight of him."

"Did you know that Dr. Barinskoi was a Nihilist?"

"Yes."

"And you did not let that make any difference to you?"

"I was not afraid of infection," said Wilhelm, and smiled again.

"Perhaps not, but of being compromised," growled the magistrate.

"That idea has not troubled me as yet."

"You inherited from a friend who committed suicide a large fortune,
which you use chiefly for the benefit of Socialist workmen?"

"I use it for the benefit of the poor, and those I certainly find more
frequently among the Socialist workmen than among factory owners and
householders."

"I'll thank you to remember that this is not the place for making bad
jokes!" roared the magistrate.

"You are quite right," Wilhelm answered serenely. "I know nothing more
unpleasant than bad jokes."

Schrotter looked as if he were going to embrace his friend. He had
never seen him from this side.

"Did it never occur to you to put yourself in communication with the
clergymen of your district, these gentlemen having far greater
facilities for finding out deserving objects of charity than a private
person?"

"I will answer that question when you have had the goodness to explain
to me what connection it has with this man's denunciation."

The magistrate glared at him in a manner calculated to wither him on
the spot, but only met a quiet, smiling face which he was incapable of
intimidating.

"May I request you now," said Schrotter in his turn, "to ask the
witness Patke if for the last few weeks he has not been a candidate for
a post as detective on the political police staff?" Schrotter too had
made a variety of inquiries since last Sunday, and had learned this
fact.

"That is so," stammered Patke, turning very red. "In these terrible
times, when the Socialists and the enemies of the country--"

"Silence, Herr Patke," interrupted the magistrate angrily; "that has
nothing to do with the business on hand." He reflected for awhile, and
then said with the most deeply grudging manner--"The statement of the
one witness--seeing too that it is indefinite in some important
points--is not sufficient to warrant me in passing a sentence, in spite
of many good grounds for suspicion afforded by your past history and
known opinions. I will therefore dismiss the charge, if only to avoid
the public scandal of a Member bein