"Gossip," said Johann Bank to the shoemaker, Deichert, "this will be tedious; we know what he is, come and have a glass of beer."
Then the rector began, and proved first, from the Bible, that in very old times there was poverty among the Jews.
"That is not so!" cried an eager voice from the crowd, "the confounded Jews have all the money there is; they know well how a poor man feels."
The rector did not let himself be disturbed, he proved the matter from the Bible, and then took up Xenophon, and told about the Helots in Sparta, but the assembly did not seem quite to understand it. Upon that, he opened Plato, and began on him, that is, on the "Republic," and said that if the Rahnstadters had such a state of things as Plato had planned for the Athenians, every laborer in Rahnstadt could have roast beef and potatoes for dinner every day, and could ride in a coach Sunday afternoons, and the children, who now went begging about the streets, would go with gold chains around their necks, instead of beggars' sacks.
"Let him tell us more about that!" "Three cheers for Plato!" sounded through the hall. "Gossip, is that the old Jew-grinder Platow, who is blind of one eye?"
"Eh, gossip, I knew him well enough; he has bought many a piece of beef of me," said Kräuger, the butcher.
The president's bell produced quiet, and that rogue of an advocate Rein turned to the rector, and begged, in the name of the assembly, that he would have the kindness to give the Rahnstadt Reformverein a particular account of the Platonic Republic.
That was a hard request, and the sweat ran down the poor old rector's face, as he began three times, and three times broke down, for he was far from having a clear idea of it himself. He finally said, in his distress, the Platonic Republic was a republic, and what a republic was his hearers, so well educated in political matters, knew very well. Well, everybody knew that; and then the rector got off among the Romans, and told something quite different, how sometimes the old Romans got hungry, and how they clamored loudly for panem et circenses. "Panem, my dear hearers," said he, "signifies bread, and circenses, open air plays."
All at once, shoemaker Deichert sprang up on a bench, and cried, "That is what I say! The old Romans were no fools; and what they did, we Rahnstadters can do, any day! What? when I and Bokel and Jürendt and all the others are sitting at Pfeifers, playing vingt-et-un, shall the burgomeister come and take away our cards, and send us and Gossip Pfeifer to the Rath-house, and make us pay a fine and costs? What? I say, like the old Romans, free, open play for all!"
"You are right, there, gossip," cried Jürendt, "three cheers for the old Romans and the Herr Rector!" And the others echoed: "Hurrah! hurrah!"