ans seemed not to hear the words of the Young Comrade, though he
was silent while they were spoken. A faint smile played around his
lips, and the far-away expression of his eyes told that the smile
belonged to the memory of other days. It was dark now in the little
shop; only the flickering light of the fitful fire in the tiny grate
enabled the Young Comrade to see his friend.

It was the Young Comrade who broke the silence at last: "Tell me more,
Hans, for I am still hungry to learn about him."

The old man nodded and turned to put some chips upon the fire in the
grate. Then he continued:

"It was about the last of February, 1848, that we got the first copies
of the _Communist Manifesto_ at Cologne. Only a day or two before that
we had news of the outbreak of the Revolution in Paris. I have still
my copy of the _Manifesto_ which Karl sent me from Paris.

"You see, he had been expelled from Brussels by order of the
Government. Prussia had requested this, so Karl wrote me, and he was
arrested and ordered to leave Belgium at once. So he went at once to
Paris. Only a week before that the Provisional Government had sent him
an official invitation to come back to the city from which Guizot had
expelled him. It was like a conqueror that he went, you may imagine.

"Boy, you can never understand what we felt in those days. Things are
not so any more. We all thought that the day of our victory was surely
nigh. Karl had made us believe that when things started in France the
proletariat of all Europe would awaken: 'When the Gallican cock crows
the German workers will rise,' he used to say. And now the cock's
crowing had been heard! The Revolution was successful in France--so we
thought--and the people were planting trees of liberty along the
boulevards.

"Here in England, too, the Spirit of the Revolution was abroad with
her flaming torch. The Chartists had come together, and every day we
expected to hear that the monarchy had been overthrown and a Social
Republic established. Of course, we knew that Chartism was a 'bread
and butter question' at the bottom, and that the Chartists' cause was
ours.

"Well, now that we had heard the Gallican cock, we wanted to get
things started in Germany, too. Every night we held meetings at the
club in Cologne to discuss the situation. Some of us wanted to begin
war at once. You see, the Revolution was in our blood like strong
wine: we were drunk with the spirit, lad.

"When Karl wrote t