itizen with you?"

"Yes," answered Gotzkowsky, "as far as paying goes. The Jew is obliged
honestly to contribute his proportion of the war-tax. How can you,
with any semblance of justice, require of him another further tax,
when he has already, in common with us, given up all he possesses?"

"Sir," cried Tottleben, with suppressed vexation "this is enough, and
more than enough!"

"No," said Gotzkowsky, smiling. "It is too much. The Jews are not able
to pay it--"

"I will remit their contribution," cried the general, stamping
violently on the floor, "to please you--just to get rid of you--but
now--"

"But now," interrupted Gotzkowsky, insinuatingly, "one more favor."

The general stepped back astounded, and looked at Gotzkowsky with a
species of comical terror. "Do you know that I am almost afraid of
you, and will thank God when you are gone?"

"Then you think of me as the whole town of Berlin thinks of you," said
Gotzkowsky.

The general laughed. "Your impudence is astonishing. Well, quick, what
is your last request?"

"They are preparing at the New Market a rare and unheard-of
spectacle--a spectacle, general, as yet unknown in Germany. You have
brought it with you from Russia. You are going to make two men run the
gantlet of rods--not two soldiers convicted of crime, but two writers,
who have only sinned in spirit against you, who have only exercised
the free and highest right of man--_the right to say what they think_.
You are going to have two newspaper writers scourged, because they
drew their quills against you. Is not that taking a barbarous revenge
for a small offence?"

"A small offence," cried the general, whose countenance had resumed
its dark, fierce expression. "Come, that's enough. Stop, if you do not
wish me to take back all that I have granted you. Do you call that a
small offence? Why, sir, the editor of _Spener's Journal_ called me
an adventurer, a renegade. Ah! he at least shall feel that I have the
power of punishing."

"Why," said Gotzkowsky calmly, "that would only prove to him that he
had hit you on a tender spot."

"And the scribbler of the _Vossian Gazette_, did he not venture even
to attack my gracious empress?" continued Tottleben, perfectly carried
away by his indignation. "He wrote a conversation between peasants,
and in it he made fun of the empress. He even went so far as to make
his own king join in the dirty talk, in the character of a peasant.
Sir, I am very much surpris