is an unconditional historic necessity
springing from the evolution of----!'

The door of the inn arrested the Sejmist's harangue. As he pushed it
open, a babel of other voices made continuance impossible. The noise
came entirely from a party of four, huddled in a cloud of
cigarette-smoke near the stove. In one of the four David recognised
the tea-merchant of the morning, but the tea-merchant seemed to have
no recollection of David. He was still expatiating upon the
Individuality of Israel, which, it appeared, was an essence
independent of place and time. He nodded, however, to the young
Sejmist, observing ironically:

'Behold, the dreamer cometh!'

'I a dreamer, forsooth!' The young man was vexed to be derided before
his new acquaintance. 'It is you _Achad-Haamists_ who must wake up.'

The tea-merchant smiled with a superior air. 'The Vozrozhdenie would
do well to study Achad-Haam's philosophy. Then they would understand
that their strivings are bound to lead to self-constriction, not
self-expression. You were saying that, too, weren't you, Witsky?'

Witsky, who was a young lawyer, demurred. 'What I said was,' he explained
to the Sejmist, 'that in your search for territorial-proletariat practice
you Sejmists have altogether lost the theory. Conversely the S.S.'s have
sacrificed territorial practice to their territorial theory. In our party
alone do you find the synthesis of the practical and the ideal. It
alone----'

'May I ask whom you speak for?' intervened David.

'The newest Jewish Social Democratic Artisan Party of Russia!' replied
Witsky proudly.

'Are you the newest?' inquired David drily.

'And the best. If we desire Palestine as the scene of our social
regeneration, it is because the unconditional historic necessity----'

The Sejmist interrupted sadly: 'I see that our Conference will have
to decide against relations with you.'

'Pooh! The S.D.A.'s will only be the stronger for isolation. Have we
not of ourselves severed our relations with the D.K.'s? In the
evolution of the forces of the people----'

'It is not right, Witsky, that you should mislead a stranger,' put in
his sallow, spectacled neighbour. 'Or perhaps you misconceive the
genetic moments of your own programme. What evolution is clearly
leading to is a Jewish autonomous party in Parliament.'

'But we also say----' began the other two.

The sallow, spectacled man waved them down wearily. 'Who but the
P.N.D.'s are the synthesis of t