"But, Mr. Grandissime, that is requiring the immigrant to prove his innocence!" Frowenfeld spoke from the heart. "And even the honest immigrant is welcome only when he leaves his peculiar opinions behind him. Is that right, sir?"
The Creole smiled at Frowenfeld's heat.
"My-de'-seh, my cousins complain that you advocate measures fatal to the prevailing order of society."
"But," replied the unyielding Frowenfeld, turning redder than ever, "that is the very thing that American liberty gives me the right--peaceably--to do! Here is a structure of society defective, dangerous, erected on views of human relations which the world is abandoning as false; yet the immigrant's welcome is modified with the warning not to touch these false foundations with one of his fingers."
"Did you tell my cousins the foundations of society here are false?"
"I regret to say I did, very abruptly. I told them they were privately aware of the fact."
"You may say," said the ever-amiable Creole, "that you allowed debate to run into controversy, eh?"
Frowenfeld was silent; he compared the gentleness of this Creole's rebukes with the asperity of his advocacy of right, and felt humiliated. But M. Grandissime spoke with a rallying smile.
"Mr. Frowenfeld, you never make pills with eight corners eh?"
"No, sir." The apothecary smiled.