'All right so long as we're under others!' gasped the artist. 'Do you realize what you're saying, Sir Asher? The Boers against whom you equipped volunteers fought frenziedly for three years not to be under others! And we—the thought of Jewish autonomy makes us foam at the mouth. The idea of independence makes us turn in the graves we call our fatherlands.'
Sir Asher dismissed the subject with a Podsnappian wave of the hand. 'This is all a waste of breath. Fortunately the acquisition of Palestine is impossible.'
'Then why do you pray for it—"speedily and in our days"?'
Sir Asher glared at the bold questioner.
'That seems a worse waste of breath,' added Barstein drily.
'I said you were a mocker,' said Sir Asher severely. 'It is a Divine event I pray for—not the creation of a Ghetto.'
'A Ghetto!' Barstein groaned in sheer hopelessness. 'Yes, you're an anti-Semite too—like your daughter, like your son, like all of us. We're all anti-Semites.'
'I an anti-Semite! Ho! ho! ho!' Sir Asher's anger broke down in sheer amusement. 'I have made every allowance for your excitement,' he said, recovering his magisterial note. 'I was once in love myself. But when it comes to calling me an anti-Semite, it is obvious you are not in a fit state to continue this interview. Indeed, I no longer wonder that you think yourself the Messiah.'
'Even if I do, our tradition only makes the Messiah a man; somebody some day will have to win your belief. But what I said was that God acts through man.'
'Ah yes,' said Sir Asher good-humouredly. 'Three-in-one and one-in-three.'