Yet a worse calamity was to happen. Once again the Christian world of police, law, and judges was to invade the home of the Kühlers, and this time it was Jacob himself who was taken. He was charged with receiving stolen goods. A detective-inspector and two constables invaded the house and took possession of an ormolu clock, a number of silver knives, and a brooch which Mr. Kuit had given to Golda. Five of Mr. Kuit's friends had been arrested, but Mr. Kuit himself was not implicated. He paid for the defence of the prisoners and took charge of the Kühler family, transferred the business into Issy's name, and advanced money to keep it going. He spared neither time nor trouble to try to establish Jacob's innocence, but it looked almost as though some one else was taking an equal amount of trouble to prove his guilt, for every move of Mr. Kuit's was countered, and Jacob himself was so bewildered and enraged that he could not give a coherent answer to the questions put to him. He babbled and raved of an enemy who had done this thing, of a rival who had plotted his ruin, but as he could not give a satisfactory account of the articles found in his possession, his passionate protestations and his fanatical belief in his own honesty were of no avail. From the dock in which he was placed with Mr. Kuit's other friends he delivered a vehement harangue in broken English, not more than ten words of which were intelligible to the judge and jury. The judge was kindly, the jury somnolent. Jacob was the only member of the party with a clean record, and he received the light sentence of eighteen months; the rest had double that term and more. In the Sunday papers they were described as a dangerous gang, and their portraits were drawn like profiles on a coin by an artist whose business it was to make villains look villainous for the delectation of the sober millions who tasted the joys of wickedness only in print. Golda was staggered by the blank indifference of the world to her husband's honesty. His word to her was law, but the judge and the newspapers swept it aside, and he was regarded as one with the wicked men whose crooked dealings had involved the innocent. This was the worst disaster that had ever broken upon her: husband and son-in-law both swept away from her, as it seemed now, in one moment. The sympathy she received from the neighbours touched her profoundly, and she accepted their view that the sudden abstraction of male relatives was a natural calamity, like sickness or fire. Thanks to Mr. Kuit the business would be kept together, and thanks to Abramovich she never lacked company. That faithful friend would come in in the evenings and go over the trial, every moment of which he had heard, and recount every word of Jacob's speech, which to him was a piece of magnificent oratory. "Not a tear was left in my eyes," he said. "Not a throb was left in my heart, and the judge was moved, for his face sank