!"

"How an omen?" inquired the Red Beadle.

"Is not plum-pudding associated with Christmas, with peace on earth?"

Hulda's eyes flashed. "Yes, it is a sign--the Brotherhood of the
Peoples! The Jew will be the peace-messenger of the world." The Red
Beadle ate on sceptically. He had studied _The Brotherhood of the
Peoples_ to the great improvement of his Hebrew but with little
edification. He had even studied it in Hulda's original manuscript,
which he had borrowed and never intended to return. But still he could
not share his friends' belief in the perfectibility of mankind.
Perhaps if they had known how he had tippled away his savings after
his wife's death, they might have thought less well of humanity and
its potentialities of perfection. After all, Huldas were too rare to
make the world sober, much less fraternal. And, charming as they were,
honesty demanded one should not curry favor with them by fostering
their delusions.

"What put such an idea into your head, Zussmann!" he cried
unsympathetically. Zussmann answered naively, as if to a question--

"I have had the idea from a boy. I remember sitting stocking-footed on
the floor of the synagogue in Poland on the Fast of Ab, wondering why
we should weep so over the destruction of Jerusalem, which scattered
us among the nations as fertilizing seeds. How else should the mission
of Israel be fulfilled? I remember"--and here he smiled pensively--"I
was awakened from my day-dream by a _Patsch_ (smack) in the face from
my poor old father, who was angry because I wasn't saying the
prayers."

"There will be always somebody to give you that _Patsch_," said the
Red Beadle gloomily. "But in what way is Israel dispersed? It seems to
me our life is everywhere as hidden from the nations as if we were all
together in Palestine."

"You touch a great truth! Oh, if I could only write in English! But
though I read it almost as easily as the German, I can write it as
little. You know how one has to learn German in Poland--by
stealth--the Christians jealous on one hand, the Jews suspicious on
the other. I could not risk the Christians laughing at my bad
German--that would hurt my Idea. And English is a language like the
Vale of Siddim--full of pits."

"We ought to have it translated," said Hulda. "Not only for the
Christians, but for the rich Jews, who are more liberal-minded than
those who live in our quarter."

"But we cannot afford to pay for the translating now," said Zu