“The only orthodox paper!” dictated De Haan.  “Largest circulation of any Jewish paper in the world!”

“No, how can we say that?” said Raphael, pausing.

“No, of course not,” said De Haan.  “I was thinking of the subsequent posters.  Look out for the first number—­on Friday, January 1st.  The best Jewish writers!  The truest Jewish teachings!  Latest Jewish news and finest Jewish stories.  Every Friday.  Twopence.”

“Twopence?” echoed Raphael, looking up.  “I thought you wanted to appeal to the masses.  I should say it must be a penny.”

“It will be a penny,” said De Haan oracularly.

“We have thought it all over,” interposed Gradkoski.  “The first number will be bought up out of curiosity, whether at a penny or at twopence.  The second will go almost as well, for people will be anxious to see how it compares with the first.  In that number we shall announce that owing to the enormous success we have been able to reduce it to a penny; meantime we make all the extra pennies.”

“I see,” said Raphael dubiously.

“We must have Chochma” said De Haan.  “Our sages recommend that.”

Raphael still had his doubts, but he had also a painful sense of his lack of the “practical wisdom” recommended by the sages cited.  He thought these men were probably in the right.  Even religion could not be pushed on the masses without business methods, and so long as they were in earnest about the doctrines to be preached, he could even feel a dim admiration for their superior shrewdness in executing a task in which he himself would have hopelessly broken down.  Raphael’s mind was large; and larger by being conscious of its cloistral limitations.  And the men were in earnest; not even their most intimate friends could call this into question.

“We are going to save London,” De Haan put it in one of his dithyrambic moments.  “Orthodoxy has too long been voiceless, and yet it is five-sixths of Judaea.  A small minority has had all the say.  We must redress the balance.  We must plead the cause of the People against the Few.”

Raphael’s breast throbbed with similar hopes.  His Messianic emotions resurged.  Sugarman’s solicitous request that he should buy a Hamburg Lottery Ticket scarcely penetrated his consciousness.  Carrying the copy of the poster, he accompanied De Haan to Gluck’s.  It was a small shop in a back street with jargon-papers and hand-bills in the window and a pervasive heavy oleaginous odor.  A hand-press occupied the centre of the interior, the back of which was partitioned of and marked “Private.”  Gluck came forward, grinning welcome.  He wore an unkempt beard and a dusky apron.

“Can you undertake to print an eight-page paper?” inquired De Haan.

“If I can print at all, I can print anything,” responded Gluck reproachfully.  “How many shall you want?”

“It’s the orthodox paper we’ve been planning so long,” said De Haan evasively.