"Look!" he said, "all over South Russia there are these!"
Benham was a little slow to understand, until half a dozen of these
papers had been thrust into his hand. Eager fingers pointed, and
several voices spoke. These things were illegalities that might
some day be legal; there were the records of loans and hidden
transactions that might at any time put all the surrounding soil
into the hands of the Jew. All South Russia was mortgaged. . . .
"But is it so?" asked Benham, and for a time ceased to listen and
stared into the fire.
Then he held up the papers in his hand to secure silence and,
feeling his way in unaccustomed German, began to speak and continued
to speak in spite of a constant insurgent undertone of interruption
from the Jewish spokesman.
All men, Benham said, were brothers. Did they not remember Nathan
the Wise?
"I did not claim him," said the spokesman, misunderstanding. "He is
a character in fiction."
But all men are brothers, Benham maintained. They had to be
merciful to one another and give their gifts freely to one another.
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