y
who was like Netty; he had a romantic heart. Dreamed that this country
could be made a great country again, as it was in the past--dreamed that
the peasants could be educated, could be civilized, could be turned into
human beings. Dreamed that when Russia undertook that Poland should be
an independent kingdom with a Polish governor, and a Polish Parliament,
she would keep her word. Dreamed that when the powers, headed by France
and England, promised to see that Russia kept to the terms of the
treaty, they would do it. Dreamed that somebody out of all that crew,
would keep his word. Comes from having a romantic heart."

And he looked at Netty with his fierce smile, as if to warn her against
this danger.

"My country," he went on, "didn't take a hand in that deal. Bit out of
breath and dizzy, as a young man would be that had had to fight his own
father and whip him."

And he bobbed his head apologetically towards Cartoner, as representing
the other side in that great misunderstanding.

"Ever heard the Polish hymn?" he asked, abruptly. He was not a good
story-teller perhaps. And while slowly cutting his beef across and
across, in a forlorn hope that it might, perchance, not give him
dyspepsia this time, he recited in a sing-song monotone:

"'O Lord, who, for so many centuries, didst surround Poland with the
magnificence of power and glory; who didst cover her with the shield of
Thy protection when our armies overcame the enemy; at Thy altar we raise
our prayer: deign to restore us, O Lord, our free country!'"

He paused, and looked slowly round the table.

"Jooly--pass the mustard," he said.

Then, having helped himself, he lapsed into the monotone again, with
a sort of earnest unction that had surely crossed the seas with those
Pilgrim Fathers who set sail in quest of liberty.

"'Give back to our Poland her ancient splendor! Look upon fields soaked
with blood! When shall peace and happiness blossom among us? God of
wrath, cease to punish us! At Thy altar we raise our prayer: deign to
restore us, O Lord, our free country!'"

And there was an odd silence, while Joseph P. Mangles ate sparingly of
the beef.

"That is the first verse, and the last," he said at length. "And all
Poland was shouting them when this man dreamed his dreams. They are
forbidden now, and if that waiter's a liar, I'll end my days in Siberia.
They sang it in the churches, and the secret police put a chalk mark on
the backs of those that s