“Ah!  There you are!  I might have expected it!” Eisernstein threw up his hands in a gesture of contempt rather than despair.  “Nobody cares what happens to Jews.  Nobody cares for our sleepless agony of mind.  Nobody cares how or what we suffer until afterward, when there will be polite expressions of regret, which the survivors will assess at a true valuation!  It is the same wherever we turn.  Last night—­at half-past one in the morning—­a committee of us, every one American, Called at the American consulate to tell our consul of our danger.  The consul was unsympathetic in the last degree.  Yet our coreligionists in the States are taxed to pay his salary.  He said it was not his business.  He referred us to the Administrator.  The Administrator refers me to you.  To whom do you refer me?  To the devil, I suppose!”

“The best thing you can do,” said.  Grim, “is to go ahead and deny that story about the offer to buy the Dome of the Rock.  You Zionists have got the most efficient publicity bureau on earth.  You can reach the public ear any time you want to.  Deny the story, and keep on denying it.”

“Ah!  Who will believe us?  To be a Zionist is to be a person about whom anybody will believe anything; and the more absurd the lie, the more readily it will be believed!  Meanwhile, the Moslems are sharpening their swords against us from one end of this land to the other!”

I suppose that what Eisernstein really needed more than anything was sympathy, not good advice.  Grim’s deliberate coolness only irritated the passion of a man, whose whole genius and energy were bent on realizing the vision of a nation of Jews firmly established in their ancient home.  A people that has been tortured in turn by all the governments can hardly be expected to produce un-nervous politicians.  He was at the mercy of emotions, obsessed by one paramount idea.  A little praise just then of his loyalty to an ideal, to which he had sacrificed time, means, health, energy, everything, would have soothed him and hurt nobody.  But the acidity of his scorn had bitten beneath the surface of Grim’s good humor.

“There’ll be no pogrom,” Grim said, getting up and lighting a cigarette.  “There’ll be nothing resembling one.  But that won’t be the fault of you Zionists.  You accuse without rime or reason, but you yell for help the minute you’re accused yourselves.  I don’t blame the Arabs for not liking you.  Nobody expects Arabs to enjoy having their home invaded by an organization of foreigners.  Yet if this Administration lifts a finger to make things easier for the Arabs you howl that it’s unfair.

“If the Administrator refuses to arrest Arabs for talking a little wildly, you call him a Nero.  I’m neither pro- nor anti-Zionist myself.  You and the Arabs may play the game out between you for all of me.  But I can promise you there’ll be no pogrom.  It is my business to know just what precautions have been taken.”