“For Allah, in his inscrutable choice, frowns on some and smiles on others. The first he condemns to contempt, anxiety, duns, bills, courts of law, sudden changes of residence and even dungeons; the second he gratifies with luxurious vehicles, delicious sherbet and enormous houses, such as mine. His will be done.
“A dear friend of mine, one Mashé, was a receiver of stolen goods in Bosra, until God took him, now twenty years ago. He left two sons of equal intelligence and rapacity. The one, after numerous degradations, died of starvation in Armenia; the other, of no greater skill, is today governor of all Algeria and rings the changes at will upon the public purse. Mektub.”
For a moment the ancient captain of industry paused with bent head in solemn meditation upon the designs of Heaven, then raising his features protested that he had too long delayed the story of his life, with which he would at once proceed.
“As a boy, my dear nephews,” began the kindly uncle, while his dutiful nephews regarded him with round eyes, “I was shy, dirty, ignorant, lazy, and wilful. My parents and teachers had but to give me an order for me to conceive at once some plan of disobeying it. All forms of activity save those connected with dissipation were abhorrent to me. So far from reciting with other boys of my age in chorus and without fault the verses of the Koran, I grew up completely ignorant of that work, the most Solemn Name in which I to this day pronounce with an aspirate from an unfamiliarity with its aspect upon the written page. Yet I am glad to say that I never neglected my religious duties, that I prayed with fervour and regularity, and that I had a singular faith in the loving kindness of my God.
“I had already reached my seventeenth year when my father, who had carefully watched the trend of my nature and the use to which I had put my faculties, addressed me as follows:
“ ‘Mahmoud, I wish you no ill. I have so far fed and clothed you because the caliph (whom Allah preserve!) has caused those who neglect their younger offspring to be severely beaten upon the soles of their feet. It is now my intention to send you about your business. I propose’—and here my dear father pulled out a small purse—‘to give you the smallest sum compatible with my own interests, so that if any harm befall you, the vigilant officers of the crown cannot ascribe your disaster to my neglect. I request that you will walk in any direction you choose so only that it be in a straight line away from my doors. If, when this your patrimony is spent, you make away with yourself I shall hold you to blame; I shall be better pleased to hear that you have sold yourself into slavery or in some other way provided for your continued sustenance. But what I should like best would be never to hear of you again.’ With those words my father (your grandfather, dear boys), seizing me by the shoulders, turned my back to his doors and thrust me forth with a hearty kick the better to emphasize his meaning.
“Thus was I launched out in the dawn of manhood to try my adventures with the world.
“I discovered in my pouch as I set out along the streets of the city the sum of 100 dinars, with which my thoughtful parent had provided me under the legal compulsion which he so feelingly described. ‘With so large a capital,’ said I to myself, ‘I can exist for several days, indulge my favourite forms of dissipation, and when they are well spent it will be time enough to think of some experiment whereby to replace them.’ ”
Here the eldest nephew said respectfully and with an inclination of the head: “Pray, uncle, what is a dinar?”
“My dear lad,” replied the merchant with a merry laugh, “I confess that to a man of my position a reply to your question is impossible. I could only tell you that it is a coin of considerable value to the impoverished, but to men like myself a denomination so inferior as to be indistinguishable from all other coins.”
Having so expressed himself the worthy merchant resumed the thread of his tale:
“I had, I say, started forward in high spirits to the sound of the coins jingling in my pouch, when my steps happened to take to the waterside, where I found a ship about to sail for the Persian Gulf. ‘Here,’ said I to myself, ‘is an excellent opportunity for travelling and for seeing the world.’
“The heat of the day was rising. No one was about but two watermen, who lay dozing upon the bank. I nimbly stepped aboard and hid myself behind one of the bales of goods with which the deck was packed. When the sun declined and work was resumed, the sailors tramped aboard, the sail was hoisted, and we started upon our journey.
“Befriended by the darkness of night I crept out quietly from my hiding-place and found a man watching over the prow, where he was deputed to try the depth of the water from time to time with a long pole. I affected an air of authority, and told him that the captain had sent me forward to deliver his commands, which were that he should give me a flask of wine, some fruit, and a cake (for I guessed that like all sailors he had in his possession things both lawful and unlawful). These I
