"What do you mean by that?" asked Wilhelm in astonishment. "I mean," returned the visitor, who had introduced himself as Stonemason Hessel, "whether you could not be persuaded to join us openly." As Wilhelm did not answer at once, Hessel resumed--"Our party needs men like you, who are independent and bold, have a university education, and speak well. You are all that, as we know. By banishing you from Berlin they have, in point of fact, made you one of us. So go a step further, Herr Doctor; defend yourself, take up the fight the government has forced upon you. You have a million of determined workmen at your back, who will gladly accept you as their leader." "Excuse my frankness," said Wilhelm at last, "but I really cannot think you are serious in your proposal." "It is a very serious matter to us," cried Hessel. "I speak in the name of the heads of the party, and have means of convincing you of the reality of my proposal if you have any doubts about it." "But how do you come to know about me?" "That is very simple. You are not, perhaps, aware how well organized we are, and how we follow up everything that may be of use to us afterward. We know what you did for our party in Berlin, and that you are suffering for it now. We know your circumstances, and that you have a considerable sum of money at your disposal, and, I repeat, we want educated men. Most of us have not had the means to get much schooling. The struggle for our daily bread uses up all our time, and all the brains we have. Look at me, Herr Doctor, for years I never had more than five hours' sleep, and always used half the night to learn the little I know. There are plenty of people among us who--more's the pity--are distrustful of the better educated--call them upstarts, and won't have anything to do with them. Their idea is that the proletariat should be led by proletariars. But that is nonsense. No oppressed class has ever yet been emancipated by its own members. It was always by high-minded men of wider views out of the upper classes. Catilina was an aristocrat, and put himself at the head of the populace. Mirabeau belonged to the Court, and overthrew the monarchy. Wilberforce, the defender of the negro, was not black himself." Wilhelm now for the first time looked more attentively at this stonemason, who talked so glibly of Catalina, Mirabeau and Wilberforce, and the thought passed through his mind that, at any rate, there was one good thing about Social Democracy--it brought education into circles to which it otherwise would never have penetrated. "And so," Hessel wound up, "we workmen too must be led to victory by educated men." "You overlook one point, however," remarked Wilhelm. "To be your leader, one must before all things share your convictions."