“But if they do not enforce it, Mr. Grandissime,” quickly responded the sore apothecary, “if they continually forget it—­if one must surrender himself to the errors and crimes of the community as he finds it—­”

The Creole uttered a low laugh.

“Party differences, Mr. Frowenfeld; they have them in all countries.”

“So your cousins said,” said Frowenfeld.

“And how did you answer them?”

“Offensively,” said the apothecary, with sincere mortification.

“Oh! that was easy,” replied the other, amusedly; “but how?”

“I said that, having here only such party differences as are common elsewhere, we do not behave as they elsewhere do; that in most civilized countries the immigrant is welcome, but here he is not.  I am afraid I have not learned the art of courteous debate,” said Frowenfeld, with a smile of apology.

“’Tis a great art,” said the Creole, quietly, stroking his horse’s neck.  “I suppose my cousins denied your statement with indignation, eh?”

“Yes; they said the honest immigrant is always welcome.”

“Well, do you not find that true?”

“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.

“No, you make them round; cannot you make your doctrines the same way?  My-de’-seh, you will think me impertinent; but the reason I speak is because I wish very much that you and my cousins would not be offended with each other.  To tell you the truth, my-de’-seh, I hoped to use you with them—­pardon my frankness.”

“If Louisiana had more men like you, M. Grandissime,” cried the untrained Frowenfeld, “society would be less sore to the touch.”