Though Wolf would not give up a Friday-night meeting--especially valuable, as permitting of the attendance of tailors who had not yet struck--Pinchas's politic advice had not failed to make an impression. Like so many reformers who have started with blatant atheism, he was beginning to see the insignificance of irreligious dissent as compared with the solution of the social problem, and Pinchas's seed had fallen on ready soil. As a labor-leader, pure and simple, he could count upon a far larger following than as a preacher of militant impiety. He resolved to keep his atheism in the background for the future and devote himself to the enfranchisement of the body before tampering with the soul. He was too proud ever to acknowledge his indebtedness to the poet's suggestion, but he felt grateful to him all the same. "My brothers," he said in Yiddish, when his turn came to speak. "It pains me much to note how disunited we are. The capitalists, the Belcovitches, would rejoice if they but knew all that is going on. Have we not enemies enough that we must quarrel and split up into little factions among ourselves? (Hear, hear.) How can we hope to succeed unless we are thoroughly organized? It has come to my ears that there are men who insinuate things even about me and before I go on further to-night I wish to put this question to you." He paused and there was a breathless silence. The orator threw his chest forwards and gazing fearlessly at the assembly cried in a stentorian voice: _"Sind sie zufrieden mit ihrer Chairman?"_ (Are you satisfied with your chairman?) His audacity made an impression. The discontented cowered timidly in their places. "_Yes_," rolled back from the assembly, proud of its English monosyllables. "_Nein_," cried a solitary voice from the topmost gallery. Instantly the assembly was on its legs, eyeing the dissentient angrily. "Get down! Go on the platform!" mingled with cries of "order" from the Chairman, who in vain summoned him on to the stage. The dissentient waved a roll of paper violently and refused to modify his standpoint. He was evidently speaking, for his jaws were making movements, which in the din and uproar could not rise above grimaces. There was a battered high hat on the back of his head, and his hair was uncombed, and his face unwashed. At last silence was restored and the tirade became audible. "Cursed sweaters--capitalists--stealing men's brains--leaving us to rot and starve in darkness and filth. Curse them! Curse them!" The speaker's voice rose to a hysterical scream, as he rambled on. Some of the men knew him and soon there flew from lip to lip, "Oh, it's only _Meshuggene David_."