The door of the inn arrested the Sejmist's harangue. As he pushed it open, a babel of other voices made continuance impossible. The noise came entirely from a party of four, huddled in a cloud of cigarette-smoke near the stove. In one of the four David recognised the tea-merchant of the morning, but the tea-merchant seemed to have no recollection of David. He was still expatiating upon the Individuality of Israel, which, it appeared, was an essence independent of place and time. He nodded, however, to the young Sejmist, observing ironically: 'Behold, the dreamer cometh!' 'I a dreamer, forsooth!' The young man was vexed to be derided before his new acquaintance. 'It is you _Achad-Haamists_ who must wake up.' The tea-merchant smiled with a superior air. 'The Vozrozhdenie would do well to study Achad-Haam's philosophy. Then they would understand that their strivings are bound to lead to self-constriction, not self-expression. You were saying that, too, weren't you, Witsky?' Witsky, who was a young lawyer, demurred. 'What I said was,' he explained to the Sejmist, 'that in your search for territorial-proletariat practice you Sejmists have altogether lost the theory. Conversely the S.S.'s have sacrificed territorial practice to their territorial theory. In our party alone do you find the synthesis of the practical and the ideal. It alone----' 'May I ask whom you speak for?' intervened David. 'The newest Jewish Social Democratic Artisan Party of Russia!' replied Witsky proudly. 'Are you the newest?' inquired David drily. 'And the best. If we desire Palestine as the scene of our social regeneration, it is because the unconditional historic necessity----' The Sejmist interrupted sadly: 'I see that our Conference will have to decide against relations with you.' 'Pooh! The S.D.A.'s will only be the stronger for isolation. Have we not of ourselves severed our relations with the D.K.'s? In the evolution of the forces of the people----' 'It is not right, Witsky, that you should mislead a stranger,' put in his sallow, spectacled neighbour. 'Or perhaps you misconceive the genetic moments of your own programme. What evolution is clearly leading to is a Jewish autonomous party in Parliament.' 'But we also say----' began the other two. The sallow, spectacled man waved them down wearily. 'Who but the P.N.D.'s are the synthesis of the historic necessities? We subsume the Conservative elements of the Spojnia Narodowa National League and of the Party of Real Politics with the Reform elements of the Democratic League and the Progressive Democrats. Consequently----' 'But the true Polish Party----' began Witsky. 'The _Kolo Polskie_ (Polish Ring) is half anti-Semitic,' began the Sejmist. The three were talking at once. Through the chaos a thin piping voice penetrated clearly. It came from the fourth member of the group--a clean-shaven ugly man, who had hitherto remained silently smoking.