ssmann.

"Nonsense; one has always a jewel left," said Hulda.

Zussmann's eyes grew wet. "Yes," he said, drawing her to his breast,
"one has always a jewel left."

"More _meshuggas!_" cried the Red Beadle huskily. "Much the English
Jews care about ideas! Did they even acknowledge your book in their
journals? But probably they couldn't read it," he added with a laugh.
"A fat lot of Hebrew little Sampson knows! You know little Sampson--he
came to report the boot-strike for _The Flag of Judah_. I got into
conversation with him--a rank pork-gorger. He believes with me that
Nature makes herself."

But Zussmann was scarcely eating, much less listening.

"You have given me a new scheme, Hulda," he said, with exaltation. "I
will send my book to the leading English Jews--yes, especially to the
ministers. They will see my Idea, they will spread it abroad, they
will convert first the Jews and then the Christians."

"Yes, but they will give it as their own Idea," said Hulda.

"And what then? He who has faith in an Idea, his Idea it is. How great
for me to have had the Idea first! Is not that enough to thank God
for? If only my Idea gets spread in English! English! Have you ever
thought what that means, Hulda? The language of the future! Already
the language of the greatest nations, and the most on the lips of men
everywhere--in a century it will cover the world." He murmured in
Hebrew, uplifting his eyes to the rain-streaked sloping ceiling. "And
in that day God shall be One and His name One."

"Your supper is getting cold," said Hulda gently.

He began to wield his knife and fork as hypnotized by her suggestion,
but his vision was inwards.

IV

Fifty copies of _The Brotherhood of the Peoples_ went off by post the
next day to the clergy and gentry of the larger Jewry. In the course
of the next fortnight seventeen of the recipients acknowledged the
receipt with formal thanks, four sent the shilling mentioned on the
cover, and one sent five shillings. This last depressed Zussmann more
than all the others. "Does he take me for a _Schnorrer_?" he said,
almost angrily, as he returned the postal order.

He did not forsee the day when, a _Schnorrer_ indeed, he would have
taken five shillings from anybody who could afford it: had no
prophetic intuition of that long, slow progression of penurious days
which was to break down his spirit. For though he managed for a time
to secure enough work to keep himself and the Red Beadl