On the Friday, Raphael sat in the editorial chair, utterly dispirited, a battered wreck.  The Committee had just left him.  A heresy had crept into a bit of late news not inspected by them, and they declared that the paper was not worth twopence and had better be stopped.  The demand for this second number was, moreover, rather poor, and each man felt his ten pound share melting away, and resolved not to pay up the half yet unpaid.  It was Raphael’s first real experience of men—­after the enchanted towers of Oxford, where he had foregathered with dreamers.

His pipe hung listless in his mouth; an extinct volcano.  His first fit of distrust in human nature, nay, even in the purifying powers of orthodoxy, was racking him.  Strangely enough this wave of scepticism tossed up the thought of Esther Ansell, and stranger still on the top of this thought, in walked Mr. Henry Goldsmith.  Raphael jumped up and welcomed his late host, whose leathery countenance shone with the polish of a sweet smile.  It appeared that the communal pillar had been passing casually, and thought he’d look Raphael up.

“So you don’t pull well together,” he said, when he had elicited an outline of the situation from the editor.

“No, not altogether,” admitted Raphael.

“Do you think the paper’ll live?”

“I can’t say,” said Raphael, dropping limply into his chair.  “Even if it does.  I don’t know whether it will do much good if run on their lines, for although it is of great importance that we get kosher food and baths.  I hardly think they go about it in the right spirit.  I may be wrong.  They are older men than I and have seen more of actual life, and know the class we appeal to better.”

“No, no, you are not wrong,” said Mr. Goldsmith vehemently.  “I am myself dissatisfied with some of the Committee’s contributions to this second number.  It is a great opportunity to save English Judaism, but it is being frittered away.”

“I am afraid it is,” said Raphael, removing his empty pipe from his mouth, and staring at it blankly.

Mr. Goldsmith brought his fist down sharp on the soft litter that covered the editorial table.

“It shall not be frittered away!” he cried.  “No, not if I have to buy the paper!”

Raphael looked up eagerly.

“What do you say?” said Goldsmith.  “Shall I buy it up and let you work it on your lines?”

“I shall be very glad,” said Raphael, the Messianic look returning to his face.

“How much will they want for it?”

“Oh, I think they’ll be glad to let you take it over.  They say it’s not worth twopence, and I’m sure they haven’t got the funds to carry it on,” replied Raphael, rising.  “I’ll go down about it at once.  The Committee have just been here, and I dare say they are still in Schlesinger’s office.”

“No, no,” said Goldsmith, pushing him down into his seat.  “It will never do if people know I’m the proprietor.”