“It hath been said that men always suspect other men of being what they themselves are, and so I make some allowance for thy words; but thou shalt ask my pardon.” Gerson Brandt spoke calmly, but his tone as well as his words made the elder cringe. “I spoke merely for thine own good. It were better that I told thee what I thought than that I thought these things and turned to thee a dissembling face.” “Crave my pardon,” said Gerson Brandt. “I humiliate myself before no man,” said Karl Weisel. “It is my right to say what I think.” “It is not thy right to cast aspersions on mine honor. I give thee one more chance to retract thy base charges.” Karl Weisel put his fat hands into his deep pockets, rose from his chair, and walked back and forth upon the platform. “This quarrel is most unseemly,” remarked Adolph Schneider, who had been leaning on his cane and idly listening. “Speak!” said Gerson Brandt. “Thou shalt not leave this room until thou hast taken back thy words.” Karl Weisel laughed, but in an instant the school-master had sprung upon the platform. He clutched the man by the collar, and, with the strength born of a tremendous indignation, he shook the heavy body of Karl Weisel until the elder’s teeth chattered. “Loose thine hold upon me!” cried Karl Weisel, who had turned pale with terror. Gerson Brandt flung him off. He knew he had forgotten all the precepts of the colony, but again the elder laughed, this time to disguise his fright. “I give thee a chance to defend thyself,” said Gerson Brandt. “As man to man we shall fight this out.” Adolph Schneider put himself between the two combatants, but Gerson Brandt, stepping past him, dragged Karl Weisel to the open space beside the platform, and there, facing him, said: “I give thee thy last opportunity to beg my pardon.” Karl Weisel did not open his lips. Instead, he covertly measured the distance to the door, and with a movement of unusual quickness turned in flight. He had not gone half a dozen steps before Gerson Brandt had him by the collar, and, dragging him back to his position, waited an instant for him to recover himself. Then he struck a blow that felled the elder. “Help! Help!” shouted Adolph Schneider, who still stood upon the platform. At first the prospect of a fight between the two influential men of the colony had suggested possibilities likely to redound into material good for himself, and he had been content to play the part of listener and spectator. Now, as he looked at Gerson Brandt, he no longer saw the school-master, but a man tall, sinewy, and muscular—a man in whose eye flashed anger and whose pose revealed an unsuspected strength. “Help! Help!” he shouted again. Gerson Brandt assisted his adversary to rise. The elder was stunned; the school-master pushed him into a chair, where he sat dazed and silent. Just then Hans Peter came shuffling in at the door. He walked as if he had heard an ordinary summons.