Sir Asher looked mollified at Barstein's acquaintance with his generosity. 'That I might suffer with them,' he replied, with a touch of humour. 'Then you _are_ a Jewish patriot,' retorted Barstein. The bluff British face grew clouded again. 'Heaven forbid. I only know of British patriots. You talk treason to your country, young man.' 'Treason--I!' The young man laughed bitterly. 'It is you Zionists that will undermine all the rights we have so painfully won in the West.' 'Oh, then you're not really a British patriot,' Barstein began. 'I will beg you to remember, sir, that I equipped a corps of volunteers for the Transvaal.' 'I dare say. But a corps of volunteers for Zion--that is blasphemy, narrow tribalism.' 'Zion's soil is holy; we want no volunteers there: we want saints and teachers. And what would your volunteers do in Zion? Fight the Sultan with his million soldiers? They couldn't even live in Palestine as men of peace. There is neither coal nor iron--hence no manufactures. Agriculture? It's largely stones and swamps. Not to mention it's too hot for Jews to work in the fields. They'd all starve. You've no right to play recklessly with human lives. Besides, even if Palestine were as fertile as England, Jews could never live off one another. And think how they'd quarrel!' Sir Asher ended almost good-humouredly. His array of arguments seemed to him a row of steam-hammers. 'We can live off one another as easily as any other people. As for quarrelling, weren't you in Parliament? Party government makes quarrel the very basis of the Constitution.' Sir Asher flushed again. A long lifetime of laying down the law had ill prepared him for repartee. 'A pretty mess we should make of Government!' he sneered. 'Why? We have given Ministers to every Cabinet in the world.' 'Yes--we're all right as long as we're under others. Sir Asher was recovering his serenity. 'All right so long as we're under others!' gasped the artist. 'Do you realize what you're saying, Sir Asher? The Boers against whom you equipped volunteers fought frenziedly for three years not to be under others! And we--the thought of Jewish autonomy makes us foam at the mouth. The idea of independence makes us turn in the graves we call our fatherlands.' Sir Asher dismissed the subject with a Podsnappian wave of the hand. 'This is all a waste of breath. Fortunately the acquisition of Palestine is impossible.' 'Then why do you pray for it--"speedily and in our days"?' Sir Asher glared at the bold questioner. 'That seems a worse waste of breath,' added Barstein drily. 'I said you were a mocker,' said Sir Asher severely. 'It is a Divine event I pray for--not the creation of a Ghetto.' 'A Ghetto!' Barstein groaned in sheer hopelessness. 'Yes, you're an anti-Semite too--like your daughter, like your son, like all of us. We're all anti-Semites.'