on, "how the
bull-dog police of this town persecute us--and they _should_ be
sympathetic. They had to leave their own island because of tyranny. Yet
as soon as they step on this soil they feel themselves self-constituted
tyrants. Something of the sort happened with your own ancestors--" she
looked at him archly--"the Pilgrim Fathers were not very tolerant to the
Quakers, the Jews, Catholics, or any sect not their own. Now you do not
seem to have inherited that ear-slicing temperament--"

"Oh, stop, Yetta! Don't make any more fun of me. I confess I am
cowardly--I hate rows and scandals--"

"'What shall it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses his
liberty?'"

"Yes, I know. But this was such a nasty little affair. The newspapers
would have driven me crazy."

"But suppose, for the sake of argument," she said, "that the row would
not have appeared in the newspapers--what then?"

"What do you mean? By Jove, there was nothing in the papers, now that I
come to think of it. I went the next morning out to Tuxedo and
forgot--what do you mean by this mystery, Yetta?"

"I mean this--suppose, for the sake of further argument, I should tell
you that there was no row, no police, no arrests!" He gasped.

"O-h, what an ass I made of myself. So that was your trial! And I
failed. Oh, Yetta, Yetta--what shall I say?" The girl softened. She took
both his hands in her shapely ones and murmured:--

"Dear little boy, I treated you roughly. Forgive me! There was a real
descent by the police--it was no deception. That's why I asked you to
play the Star-Spangled Banner--"

"Excuse me, Yetta; but why did you do that? Why didn't you meet the
police defiantly chanting the Marseillaise? That would have been
braver--more like the true anarchist." She held down her head.

"Because--because--those poor folks--I wanted to spare them as much
trouble with the police as possible," she said in her lowest tones.

"And why," he pursued triumphantly, "why did you preach bombs after
assuring me that reform must come through the spiritual propaganda?" She
quickly replied:--

"Because our most dangerous foe was in the audience. You know. The man
with the beard who first spoke. He has often denounced me as lukewarm;
and then you know words are not as potent as deeds with the
proletarians. One assassination is of more value than all the philosophy
of Tolstoy. And that old wind-bag sat near us and watched us--watched
me. That's why I let my