"Karl was arrested upon a charge of treason, inciting people to armed resistance to the King's authority. We all feared that it would go badly with him. There was another trial, too, Karl and Engels and a comrade named Korff, manager of the paper, were placed on trial for criminal libel. I went to this trial and heard Karl make the speech for the defence. The galleries were crowded and when he got through they applauded till the rafters shook. 'If Marx can make a speech like that at the 'treason' trial, no jury will convict,' was what everybody in the galleries said.
"When we got outside—oh, I forgot to say that the three defendants were acquitted, didn't I? Well, when we got outside, I told Karl what all the comrades, and many who were not comrades at all, were saying about his defence. He was pleased to hear it, I believe, but all that he would say was, 'I shall do much better than that, Hans, much better than that. Unless I'm mistaken, I can make the public prosecutor look like an idiot, Hans.'
"You can bet that I was at the 'treason' trial two days later. I pressed Karl's hand as he went in, and he looked back and winked at me as mischievously as possible, but said not a word. The lawyers for the government bitterly attacked Karl and the two other members of the executive of the Democratic Club who were arrested with him. But their abuse was mostly for Karl. He was the one they were trying to strike down, any fool could see that.
"Well, when the case for the prosecution was all in, Karl began to talk to the jury. He didn't make a speech exactly, but just talked as he always did when he sat with a few friends over a glass of lager. In a chatty sort of way, he explained the law to the jury, showed where the clever lawyers for the government had made big mistakes, and proved that he knew the law better than they did. After that he gave them a little political lecture, you might say. He explained to them just how he looked at the political questions—always from the standpoint of the working people.
"Sitting beside me was an old man, a Professor of Law they told me he was. He sat there with his eyes fastened upon Karl, listening with all his ears to every word. 'Splendid! Splendid! Wonderful logic,' I heard him say to himself. 'What a lawyer that man would make!' I watched the faces of the jury and it was plain to see that Karl was making a deep impression upon them, though they were all middle class men. Even the old judge forgot himself and nodded and smiled when Karl's logic made the prosecution look foolish. You could see that the old judge was admiring the wonderful mind of the man before him.
"Well, the three prisoners were acquitted by the jury and Karl was greatly pleased when the jury sent one of their members over to say that they had passed a vote of thanks to 'Doctor Marx' for the very interesting and instructive lecture he had given them. I tell you, boy, I was prouder than ever of Karl after that, and went straight home and wrote letters to half a dozen people in Treves that I knew, telling them all about Karl's great speech. You see, I knew that he would never send word back there, and I wanted everybody in the old town to know that Karl was making a great name in the world.
"The government got to be terribly afraid of Karl after that trial, and when revolutionary outbreaks occurred all through the Rhine Province, the following May, they suppressed the paper and expelled Karl from Prussia.
"We had a meeting of the executive committee to consider what was to be done. Karl said that he was going to Paris at once, and that his wife and children would follow next day. Engels was going into the Palatinate of Bavaria to fight in the ranks, with Annecke, Kinkel, and Carl Schurz. All the debts in connection with the paper had been paid, he told us, so that no dishonor could attach to its memory.
"It was not until afterward that we heard how the debts of the paper had been paid. Karl had pawned all the silver things belonging to his wife, and sold lots of furniture and things to get the money to pay the debts. They were not his debts at all, and if they were his expulsion would have been a very good reason for leaving the debts unpaid. But he was not one of that kind. Honest as the sun, he was. It was just like him to make the debts his own, and to pinch himself and his family to pay them. More than once Karl and his family had to live on dry bread in Cologne in order to keep the paper going. My Barbara found out once in some way that Karl's wife and baby didn't have enough to eat, and when she came home and told me we both cried ourselves to sleep because of it."
"Could none of the comrades help them, Hans?"