'I am not talking of our rights, but of our lives.' David grew impatient. Being a Banker, Erbstein never listened, though he invariably replied. His success in finance had made him an authority upon religion and politics. 'Trust the Octobrists,' he said cheerily. 'I'd rather trust our revolvers.' The Banker's cigar fell from his mouth. 'An anarchist! like my nephew Simon!' David began to realize the limitations of the financial intellect. He saw that to get ideas into Bankers' brains is even more difficult than to get cheques from their pockets. Still, there was that promising scapegrace Simon! He hurried out on his scent, and ran him to earth in a cosy house near the town gate. Simon practised law, it appeared, and his surname was Rubensky. The young barrister, informed of his uncle's accusation of anarchism, laughed contemptuously. 'Bourgeois! Every idea that makes no money he calls anarchy. As a matter of fact, I'm the exact opposite of an anarchist: I'm a socialist. I belong to the P.P.S. We're not even revolutionary like the S.R.'s.' 'I'm afraid I'm a great ignoramus,' said David. 'I don't even know what all these letters stand for.' Simon Rubensky looked pityingly as at a bourgeois. 'S.R.'s are the silly Social Revolutionists; I belong to the Polish Party of Socialism.' 'Ah!' said David, with an air of comprehension. 'And I belong to the Jewish Party of Self-Defence! I hope you'll join it too.' The young lawyer shook his head. 'A separate Jewish party! No, no! That would be putting back the clock of history. The non-isolation of the Jew is an unconditional historic necessity. Our emancipation must be worked out in common with Russia's.' 'Oh, then you agree with your uncle!' 'With that bourgeois! Never! But we are Poles of the Mosaic Faith--Jewish Poles, not Polish Jews.' 'The hooligans are murdering both impartially.' 'And the Intellectuals equally,' rejoined Simon. 'But the Intellectuals will triumph over the Reactionaries,' said David passionately, 'and then both will trample on the Jews. Didn't the Hungarian Jews join Kossuth? And yet after Hungary's freedom was won----' Simon's wife and sister here entered the room, and he introduced David smilingly as a Ghetto reactionary. The young women--sober-clad students from a Swiss University--opened wide shocked eyes. 'So young, too!' Simon's wife murmured wonderingly. 'Would you have me stand by and see our people murdered?' 'Certainly,' she said, 'rather than see the _Zeitgeist_ set back. The unconditional historic necessity will carry us on of itself towards a better social state.' 'There you go with your Marx and your Hegel!' cried Simon's sister. 'I object to your historic materialism. With Fichte, I assert----' 'She is an S.R.,' Simon interrupted her to explain. 'Ah,' said David. 'Not a P.P.S. like you and your wife.' 'Simon, did you tell him I was a P.P.S.?' inquired his wife indignantly.