'He knows all about you, you infamous rascal,' he said.
'You have told him?'
'He told me; he always knows everything. You are a baptized police spy, posing as a P.P.S. I suppose he's heard of your visit to Herr Rubensky.'
'But I shall undeceive him!'
'Not if you want his money. Such a blow to his vanity would cost you dear. Go in; I did not tell him you were the young man he was telling me of. I must fly.' The P. Z shook David's hand. 'Don't forget he's the bourgeois type of Zionist; his object is not to create the future, but to resurrect the dead past.'
'And mine is to keep alive the living present. Won't you——?' But the doctor was gone.
The Mizrachi Z.Z. proved unexpectedly small in stature and owl-like in expression; but his 'Be seated, sir—be seated; what can I do for you?' had the grand manner. It evoked a resentful chord in David.
'It is something I propose to do for you,' he said bluntly. 'Milovka is in danger.'
'It is, indeed,' said the M.Z.Z. 'When men like Dr. Lerkoff (in whose company I was sorry to see you) command a hearing, it is in deadly danger. An excellent physician, but you know the Talmudical saying: "Hell awaits even the best of physicians." And he calls himself a Zionist! Bah! he's more dangerous than that young renegade spy who dubs himself P.P.S.'
'But he seems very zealous for Zion,' said David uneasily.