ros, was a conspicuous
figure.

"Peace be to you, Karlkammer!" said Pinchas to him in Hebrew.

"To you be peace, Pinchas!" replied Karlkammer.

"Ah!" went on Pinchas. "Sweeter than honey it is to me, yea than fine
honey, to talk to a man in the Holy Tongue. Woe, the speakers are few in
these latter days. I and thou, Karlkammer, are the only two people who
can speak the Holy Tongue grammatically on this isle of the sea. Lo, it
is a great thing we are met to do this night--I see Zion laughing on her
mountains and her fig-trees skipping for joy. I will be the treasurer of
the fund, Karlkammer--do thou vote for me, for so our society shall
flourish as the green bay tree."

Karlkammer grunted vaguely, not having humor enough to recall the usual
associations of the simile, and Pinchas passed on to salute Hamburg. To
Gabriel Hamburg, Pinchas was occasion for half-respectful amusement. He
could not but reverence the poet's genius even while he laughed at his
pretensions to omniscience, and at the daring and unscientific guesses
which the poet offered as plain prose. For when in their arguments
Pinchas came upon Jewish ground, he was in presence of a man who knew
every inch of it.

"Blessed art thou who arrivest," he said when he perceived Pinchas.
Then dropping into German he continued--"I did not know you would join
in the rebuilding of Zion."

"Why not?" inquired Pinchas.

"Because you have written so many poems thereupon."

"Be not so foolish," said Pinchas, annoyed. "Did not King David fight
the Philistines as well as write the Psalms?"

"Did he write the Psalms?" said Hamburg quietly, with a smile.

"No--not so loud! Of course he didn't! The Psalms were written by Judas
Maccabaeus, as I proved in the last issue of the Stuttgard
_Zeitschrift_. But that only makes my analogy more forcible. You shall
see how I will gird on sword and armor, and I shall yet see even you in
the forefront of the battle. I will be treasurer, you shall vote for me,
Hamburg, for I and you are the only two people who know the Holy Tongue
grammatically, and we must work shoulder to shoulder and see that the
balance sheets are drawn up in the language of our fathers."

In like manner did Melchitsedek Pinchas approach Hiram Lyons and Simon
Gradkoski, the former a poverty-stricken pietist who added day by day to
a furlong of crabbed manuscript, embodying a useless commentary on the
first chapter of Genesis; the latter the portly fancy-goods