“The third day I spent overlooking the levelling of the ground and its last preparation, as also in making mysterious marks with little pegs and jotting down notes in a book: all of which excited the owner to the last degree, and left him (as the phrase goes) with his tongue hanging out for the new trees.
“That evening my kind host after some little embarrassment made me an offer. Would I, he asked, share in the profits of the enterprise? I at once refused. My decision surprised him: but, as he pressed the project upon me, I told him that gratitude was only a part of my decision. I owed him everything; he had found me—it seemed a month ago indeed, though it was but three days—in rags; he had clothed me, fed me and, what was more, trusted me. His trust, I assured him, would not be deceived. ‘I shall be content,’ I concluded, ‘with the salary proper to my position’ (he at once mentioned a sum, which I halved), ‘but I will go so far as this; if, upon the opening of the fourth year, your profits shall be found to have exceeded what I have suggested, if you make in the three years more than 600 pieces of gold, at 200 pieces a year, which I suggest as the probable result, I will accept, though reluctantly, one half of the excess. For I am confident,’ and here I put an especially serious tone into my voice, ‘that we shall do better than I have said. I have ever held it my duty to give a conservative estimate and to avoid the disappointment of those who employ me. To this, among other things, do I ascribe the great success which attended me during my earlier years, and which only failed me through the deplorable accidents I related to you on our first meeting.’
“My host appeared a little confused at my probity, or rather, at my scruples; but he told me that he had always found such errors to be upon the right side, and assured me that I should not lose by the austerity of my temper. Nor did I. …
“We spent the rest of the evening looking at the illuminations in his fine library. I expressed myself enthralled by them all. I lingered with especial care over every representation of an orchard in these pictures, and spoke in the most learned manner of the various fruits therein displayed. As luck would have it we came to one particularly fine painting in which were delineated the most enormous pears of a brilliant golden hue interspersed with soft leaves. ‘This,’ I cried delightedly, ‘is the very fruit of which I have been speaking! How interesting! How exciting!’
“ ‘Is that so?’ said my host, transported at the coincidence, ‘Once more I must say it: how small is the world!’
“ ‘Yes,’ said I, ‘it is that pear “Glory of Heaven,” of which I have been speaking and which you may see, by comparison with the insects here portrayed and of the trellis work, to be most enormous fruit. Of its succulence I must leave you to judge when you shall gather your first harvest. Of its highly saleable quality in the markets of the north you will, I trust, soon have satisfactory experience.’
“ ‘I shall indeed!’ said my host, now quite beside himself with the combined emotions of the collector and the man of property. He blessed again and again the day he had the good fortune to meet such a man as myself. Summoning his bailiff he gave orders for the wagon to be prepared over night and the horses to be ready by sunrise. ‘No, no,’ said I, ‘an hour before sunrise, if you please! I am determined, at whatever inconvenience to myself, to have the plants back here, at your house, on the night of the same day. I will risk no failure in this great affair!’ Again he blessed and thanked me, and when his dependents were dismissed took me aside and prepared to count out the money which would be required for my expenditure.
“ ‘You said 400 pieces of gold,’ said he, as he disposed the coins in little heaps of ten upon the table. ‘You had better make it 500, for there may have been fluctuations in the market since you last purchased, and it is good that you should have a margin.’
“I told him I thought the provision a wise one, but that I would account for every penny when he should next see me. And this, curiously enough, was my true intention, though I could not have given him any very exact date for our next meeting. I wrote him out a formal receipt in spite of his protests, remarking that business was business; and so that every formality should be accomplished I signed the document in the name of an old friend of mine, one Daoud-ben-Yacoub. I said I would further have affixed my seal had I possessed one, but placed as I was, no such instrument was available.
“ ‘The ball of your thumb will do,’ said the young man carelessly. His words brought me up rather sharp, and it was not without trepidation that I acceded to this chance request. But once more the inspiration of Heaven served me. I dexterously substituted my middle finger for my thumb as I pressed the wax thereunder. This arrangement,” said the old merchant, as he crossed the two fingers in the presence of his nephews, by way of illustration, “I recommend you upon every occasion of life. It is especially useful in those tyrannical countries where the police take the thumb-marks of innocent wayfarers. I
