"But if they had regarded it as a libel," retorted Berthold sharply, "they would have been under an obligation to prosecute the libellers. Beside, it is common knowledge that we are living in a state where no Jew is safe from being convicted to death for ritual murder; so why should the authorities shrink from taking official cognisance of the theory that Jews when they fight duels with pistols with Christians manage--perhaps for religious reasons--to ensure for themselves a criminal advantage? That the Court didn't lack the good-will to take another opportunity of doing a service to the party in power is best seen by the fact that he still remains under arrest pending the trial, in spite of the fact that the high bail was tendered." "I don't believe the story about the bail," said the old doctor. "Where's Leo Golowski to get fifty thousand gulden from?" "It wasn't fifty thousand, father, but a hundred thousand, and so far Leo Golowski knows nothing about it. I can tell you in confidence, father, that Salomon Ehrenberg put up the money." "Indeed! Well, I'll tell you something in confidence too, Berthold." "Well?" "It's possible that it won't go to trial at all. Golowski's advocate has presented a petition to quash the proceedings." Berthold burst out laughing. "On those grounds! And do you think, father, that that can have the slightest prospect of success? Yes, if Leo had fallen and the First-Lieutenant had survived ... then perhaps." The old man shook his head impatiently. "You must always make opposition speeches, my boy, at any price." "Forgive me, father," said Berthold, twitching his brows. "Every one hasn't got the enviable gift of being able to ignore certain tendencies in public life when they don't concern him personally." "Is that what I am in the habit of doing, then?" retorted the old man vehemently, and the half-shut eyes beneath the high forehead opened almost bitterly. "But it is you, Berthold, much more than I, who refuse to look where you don't want to see. I think you're beginning to brood over your ideas. You're getting morbid. I had hoped that a stay in another city, in another country, would cure you of certain petty narrow ideas, but they have grown worse instead. I notice it. I can neither understand nor approve any one starting fighting like Leo Golowski did. But to go on standing with your clenched fist in your pocket, so to speak--what's the point of it? Pull yourself together, man. Character and industry always pull through in the end. What's the worst that can happen to you? That you get your professorship a few years later than any one else. I don't think it is so great a misfortune. They won't be able to ignore your work if it is worth anything...." "It is not only a question of myself," objected Berthold.