ake a speech before a
large circle of men holding similar views, and it was for that Maurer
was now waiting for him. He meant to inculcate another lesson or two
in his friend's mind, and to talk over with him a few important
points in the programme of the evening.

When Schmitz had laid aside his work and locked up his sheets in the
desk,--sheets on which the list of names of the men under him and the
respective amounts of work done by each were marked down,--he joined
Maurer. Both then walked on in silence through the narrow lanes
towards Maurer's dwelling.

At a nearby dramshop they jointly purchased a jugful of beer; then
took it home, lit the lamp, and began their conversation.

It turned particularly on a new tax bill, which would add another
serious burden to those under which the working classes were groaning.
The aim was to gain as many opponents to it as possible, so that at
the last reading in the Reichstag an overwhelming majority could be
secured against the measure, sufficient to bring about its defeat.

The two friends were engaged in eager discussion until after midnight.
When they parted they had reached perfect agreement.

On the day following Schmitz was in a state of feverish agitation. It
seemed strange to him, after all. But a short while ago he was
wearing the "king's coat." A short twelvemonth previously he had been
a soldier of the Kaiser's,--a man sworn to defend the fatherland and
to aid and further its interests,--and to-day?--to-day he was one of
those who are accused of shaking the foundations of the state edifice,
those who are aiming to erect a new commonwealth more in consonance
with their own ideas and interests.

But when he on the same evening ascended the speaker's stand, carrying
himself erect as a freeman, and when a crowd of many hundreds welcomed
the new comrade with enthusiastic shouts, he felt differently. Even
before he had said a word to his new friends they saluted him joyously
as one of themselves,--as one to bring about the new millennium,--and
his confidence in himself grew apace, and a mighty longing to achieve
fame in this _new_ army clutched his soul. It was his full intention
to please this heterogeneous mass of men; he meant to force them into
the circle of his own conceptions and beliefs, so that all of them
should follow him, without a will of their own, as sheep follow a
shepherd.

And he began his address. He first described the provisions of this
new bil