ength
the wily and unscrupulous proceedings through which he had been brought
to ruin. The company listened to his story, many nodded in token of
sympathy, for everybody was acquainted with the ways of the hero of the
day.

"That's the way Shund has made a beggar of me," concluded Holt. "And I
am not the only one, you know it well. If, then, I call Shund a usurer,
a scoundrel, a villain, you cannot help agreeing with me."

Flachsen noticed with alarm that the feeling of the company was
becoming hostile to his cause. He approached the table, where he was
met by perplexed looks from his aids.

"Don't you perceive," cried he, "that Holt is a hireling of the
priests? Will you permit yourselves to be imposed upon by this salaried
slave? Hear me, you scapegrace, you rascal, you ass, listen to what I
have to tell you! Hans Shund is the lion of the day--the greatest man
of this century! Hans Shund is greater than Bismarck, sharper than
Napoleon. Out of nothing God made the universe: from nothing Hans Shund
has got to be a rich man. Shund has a mouthpiece that moves like a
mill-wheel on which entire streams fall. In the assembly Shund will
talk down all opposition. He will talk even better than that fellow
Voelk, over in Bavaria, who is merely a lawyer, but talks upon
everything, even things he knows nothing about. And do you, lousy
beggar, presume to malign a man of this kind? If you open that filthy
mouth of yours once more, I will stop it for you with paving-stones."

"Hold, Flachsen, hold! _I_ am not the man that is paid; you are the one
that is paid," retorted the countryman indignantly. "My mouth has not
been honey-fed like yours. Nor do I drink your election beer or eat
your election sausages. But with my last breath I will maintain that
Shund is a scoundrel, a usurer, a villain."

"Out with the fellow!" cried Flachsen. "He has insulted us all, for we
have all been drinking election beer. Out with the helot of the
priests!"

The progressionist mob fell upon the unhappy man, throttled him, beat
him, and drove him into the street.

"Let us leave this den of cutthroats," said Gerlach, rising.

Outside they found Holt leaning against a wall, wiping the blood from
his face. Seraphin approached him. "Are you badly hurt, my good man?"
asked he kindly. The wounded man, looking up, saw a noble countenance
before him, and, whilst he continued to gaze hard at Seraphin's fine
features, tears began to roll from his eyes.