Not that Sir Asher himself was unpicturesque. Indeed, he was the very picture of the bluff and burly Briton, white-bearded like Father Christmas. But he did not seem to lead to yonder vision of poetry and purity. Lady Aaronsberg, who might have supplied the missing link, was dead--before even arriving at ladyship, alas!--and when she was alive Barstein had not enjoyed the privilege of moving in these high municipal circles. This he owed entirely to his foreign fame, and to his invitation by the Corporation to help in the organization of a local Art Exhibition. 'I do admire Sir Asher,' the Mayoress broke in suddenly upon his reflections; 'he seems to me exactly like your patriarchs.' A Palestinian patriarch was the last person Sir Asher, with his hovering lackeys, would have recalled to the sculptor, who, in so far as the patriarchs ever crossed his mind, conceived them as resembling Rembrandt's Rabbis. But he replied blandly: 'Our patriarchs were polygamists.' 'Exactly,' assented the deaf Mayoress. Barstein, disconcerted, yearned to repeat his statement in a shout, but neither the pitch nor the proposition seemed suitable to the dinner-table. The Mayoress added ecstatically: 'You can imagine him sitting at the door of his tent, talking with the angels.' This time Barstein did shout, but with laughter. All eyes turned a bit enviously in his direction. 'You're having all the fun down there,' called out Sir Asher benevolently; and the bluff Briton--even to the northerly burr--was so vividly stamped upon Barstein's mind that he wondered the more that the Mayoress could see him as anything but the prosy, provincial, whilom Member of Parliament he so transparently was. 'A mere literary illusion,' he thought. 'She has read the Bible, and now reads Sir Asher into it. As well see a Saxon pirate or a Norman jongleur in a modern Londoner.' As if to confirm Barstein's vision of the bluff and burly Briton, Sir Asher was soon heard over the clatter of conversation protesting vehemently against the views of Tom Fuller, the degenerate son of a Tory squire. 'Give Ireland Home Rule?' he was crying passionately. 'Oh, my dear Mr. Fuller, it would be the beginning of the end of our Empire!' 'But the Irish have as much right to govern themselves as we have!' the young Englishman maintained. 'They would not so much govern themselves as misgovern the Protestant minority,' cried Sir Asher, becoming almost epigrammatic in his excitement. 'Home Rule simply means the triumph of Roman Catholicism.' It occurred to the cynical Barstein that even the defeat of Roman Catholicism meant no victory for Judaism, but he stayed his tongue with a salted almond. Let the Briton make the running. This the young gentleman proceeded to do at a great pace. 'Then how about Home Rule for India? There's no Catholic majority there!'