His mouth seemed parched; and he moved his tongue frequently, this side
and that, appearing unable to say any thing further. He looked at the
expressive countenance of the Banker, and, nodding to him, said,--

"I see you have a word to say. Pray say it."

The Banker, coloring very red, responded,--

"Certainly. I will not speak of the emotion this life-history has
excited in me. It is--I know not what to call it; but I think it is a
history of humiliation: and perhaps a Jew ought to be inclined to judge
righteously, I will say mercifully, of all sins and transgressions
which proceed from being slighted and contemned. Humiliation, placing
the matter in a social point of view, awakens bitterness, hardness,
recklessness; and it must be a peculiar nature, which becomes, under
its influence, mild, even to faint-heartedness and weakness."

The Doctor respected the man's point of view; but he did not seem
disposed to accede to it. He urged a decision, asking,--

"Have you any method of punishment or reparation to propose?"

"First of all," replied the Banker, "I don't know any thing else,
except to take away from this man all parental power over his children;
and we must devise some delicate way of doing this, in order not to
inflict suffering upon them."

"We Germans," cried the Doctor briskly, "are for ever and ever
schoolmasters. This hard, seared villain of a Sonnenkamp wants to teach
that his villany is pure wisdom and logic; and he contemptuously
garnishes his cynicism with ideas."

"Exile," began Professor Einsiedel,--"exile would be the only sentence
we, like the ancients, could pronounce upon him who has desecrated and
insulted all the blessings of civilization; but there is no land to
which we could banish him, where, stripped of all the conquests won by
civilization, he could atone for his past life."

Professor Einsiedel seemed not to take it amiss that he had an
opportunity to put to a practical use the studies he had made of the
history of slavery, and to show how the Greeks had no perception of its
iniquity; but the Doctor laid his hand upon the professor's shoulder,
as much as to say,--

"Some other time, I pray."

The Professor gave him a nod.

"Every punishment we suspend over him," said Prince Valerian, "is a
punishment of his children: he is protected by an invulnerable shield."

There was now a longer pause. "And yet we shall and must find one,"
cried Weidmann. "I beg you to come togethe