“Just think, Herr Mauler, I dreamt that all of a sudden only Jews and Jewesses start to come to my store. Every last one of ’em’s dressed in the latest style, and carries piles of bank-notes, and there’s a big rush. The girls can’t bring the furs and cloth and cloaks and suits fast enough for ’em, and all the ready-made clothing department’s filled with silks and velvets and laces and embroideries. But nothing’s good enough for ’em, and one Jewish lady, dressed in very good and stylish clothes, keeps on crying: ‘That’s nothing! We’re coming from Paris and Palestine, where everything’s in the latest style. Show me the best you’ve got!’ Then, without any warning, my head salesgirl brings out a pair of cotton bloomers and says: ‘But my dear Jewish lady, this is the newest thing from Paris!’ Then everybody laughs so terrible much that I wake up. Don’t you think, Herr Mauler, that this dream means something?” Herr Mauler grinned as he answered: “Yes--it means that pretty soon all the world’ll be laughing at us, and we’ll be wrapping ourselves in flannel and cotton before we’re buried for good. But one thing’s sure, Herr Habietnik. If an automobile was to stop in front of my shop with a Jewish couple in it, I’d kiss ’em both, and I’d be happy again! You know, Herr Habietnik, in the old days, when I was still a clerk with Herr Zwirner, what used to have my store, I often thought it really was a shame that almost no one but the Jews had the money for diamonds and pearls. And once I even said so out loud. Then Herr Zwirner laughed in my face and said: ‘Don’t be a fool, Mauler, but be glad the Jews buy and put money in circulation. Or would you like it better if they was to hide and bury their money like the peasants? You’ll see, if the anti-Semitism business keeps on the rich Jews’ll leave the country--and then all the stores’ll have to close down!’ “Well--and now both the rich and poor Jews have left Austria, and we’re all finished good and proper!” CHAPTER XIV. AN INFLAMMATORY SPEECH In the Spineder home Christmas Eve had been celebrated in the usual patriarchal manner. But the atmosphere was not entirely cheerful. The Hofrat was beginning to have grave financial worries because of the depreciation of his fortune; Frau Spineder had not yet recovered from the shock of having had to pay a quarter million for her Christmas carp and three million for the Christmas goose; and Lotte was worried because she had received no news of Leo although she had hoped that he would at least remember her with a Christmas card. As they were reverentially consuming the costly fish, the doorbell rang and the maid announced that a man had come to deliver something personally to the young lady. Lotte hurried out, and the fur-coated man who had something to deliver to her kissed her madly in the dark hall before he pressed a tiny package into her hand and hurried away.