fury and cheers for the Revolution.

"I tried to speak to Karl after the meeting, but he brushed me aside
and hurried away. His face was terrible to behold. He was the
Revolution itself in human shape. As I looked at him I knew that he
would live to avenge poor Blum.

"Blum's death was followed by the _coup de' etat_. The King appointed
a new ministry and the National Assembly was dissolved. The _Neue
Rhenische Zeitung_ came out then with a notice calling upon all
citizens to forcibly resist all attempts to collect taxes from them.
That meant war, of course, war to the knife, and we all knew it.

"Karl was arrested upon a charge of treason, inciting people to armed
resistance to the King's authority. We all feared that it would go
badly with him. There was another trial, too, Karl and Engels and a
comrade named Korff, manager of the paper, were placed on trial for
criminal libel. I went to this trial and heard Karl make the speech
for the defence. The galleries were crowded and when he got through
they applauded till the rafters shook. 'If Marx can make a speech like
that at the 'treason' trial, no jury will convict,' was what everybody
in the galleries said.

"When we got outside--oh, I forgot to say that the three defendants
were acquitted, didn't I? Well, when we got outside, I told Karl what
all the comrades, and many who were not comrades at all, were saying
about his defence. He was pleased to hear it, I believe, but all that
he would say was, 'I shall do much better than that, Hans, much better
than that. Unless I'm mistaken, I can make the public prosecutor look
like an idiot, Hans.'

"You can bet that I was at the 'treason' trial two days later. I
pressed Karl's hand as he went in, and he looked back and winked at me
as mischievously as possible, but said not a word. The lawyers for
the government bitterly attacked Karl and the two other members of the
executive of the Democratic Club who were arrested with him. But their
abuse was mostly for Karl. He was the one they were trying to strike
down, any fool could see that.

"Well, when the case for the prosecution was all in, Karl began to
talk to the jury. He didn't make a speech exactly, but just talked as
he always did when he sat with a few friends over a glass of lager. In
a chatty sort of way, he explained the law to the jury, showed where
the clever lawyers for the government had made big mistakes, and
proved that he knew the law better than they did