Poor David now found it impossible to get anybody to a meeting. His landlord had forbidden any more gatherings in the inn, and his original audience would have called as a deputation upon David to beg him to withdraw from the town, but that might have been considered a conspirative meeting. So one of the Ambassadors was sent to inform the landlord instead.
'Don't you think I've already ordered him off my premises?'
'Alas! He threatens to shoot me--or anybody who _massers_ (informs),' said the poor landlord.
'As if I would betray a brother-in-Israel!' added the landlord reproachfully.
'No, no--of course not,' said the Ambassador. 'These fellows are best left alone; they wear fuses under their waistcoats instead of _Tsitsith_ (ritual fringes). Let us hope, however, a sudden death may rid us of him.'
Not that David had any reason for clinging to so squalid a hostel. But his blood was up, and he took a malicious pleasure in inflicting his perilous presence upon his prudential host.
Reduced now to buttonholing individuals, he consoled himself with the thought that the population was best tackled by units. One fool or coward was enough to infect or betray a whole gathering.
Still intent on the sinews of war, he sallied out after breakfast, and approached Erbstein the Banker. Erbstein held up his hands. 'But I've just given a thousand roubles to guard us from a _pogrom_!'
'That was for the Governor. Give me only a hundred for Self-Defence.'
The Banker puffed tranquilly at his big cigar. 'But our rights are bound to come in the end. We can only get them gradually. Full rights now are nonsense--impossible. It is bad tactics to ask for what you cannot get. Only in common with Russia can our emancipation----'
'I am not talking of our rights, but of our lives.' David grew impatient.
Being a Banker, Erbstein never listened, though he invariably replied. His success in finance had made him an authority upon religion and politics.
'Trust the Octobrists,' he said cheerily.
David began to realize the limitations of the financial intellect. He saw that to get ideas into Bankers' brains is even more difficult than to get cheques from their pockets. Still, there was that promising scapegrace Simon! He hurried out on his scent, and ran him to earth in a cosy house near the town gate. Simon practised law, it appeared, and his surname was Rubensky.