“Within ten years there were no bounds to my possessions. It was currently said that I myself had no conception of their magnitude, and I admit this was true. From time to time I would pay enormous sums to endow a place of learning, to benefit the Ministers of my own Religion (and its antagonists), or to propagate by means of an army of public criers some insignificant opinion peculiar to myself or my wife, your dear aunt—whose strong views upon the wearing of green turbans by Hadjis and the illumination of the Koran in red ink are doubtless familiar to you.
“I would also put up vast buildings to house the aged indigent whose name began with an A, or others wherein could be set to useful labour the aged indigent who were blind of one eye.
“I erected, endowed and staffed an immense establishment, standing in its own park-like grounds, wherein was taught and proved the true doctrine that gold and silver are but dross and that learning is the sole good; and yet others in which it was proved with equal certitude that learning, like all mundane things, is dust and only an exact knowledge of the Sacred Text worth having. But the professors of this last science demanded double pay, urging (with sense, I thought) first that any fool could talk at large but that it took hard work to study manuscripts; second that only half a dozen men knew the documents exhaustively and that if they were underrated they would stand aside and wreck the enterprise with their savage critiques.
“Meanwhile I devised in my leisure time an amusing instrument of gain called ‘The cream separator.’ I paid my wretched sultan and his court for a law, to be imposed, compelling all men, under pain of torture, to reveal their revenues from farming or any other reputable trade, but taking no account of gambling and juggling as being unimportant and too difficult to follow. I next paid another sum to the writers and spouters and other starvelings to denounce all who objected. For less than double this sum I brought a new law which swept away all the surplus of the better farmers and other reputable men into a general fund and paid out their cruel loss, partly in little doles to the very poor, but partly also (for fair play’s a jewel) in added stipends to the very rich with posts at court: the lord high conjurer I especially favoured. Thus did I establish a firm friendship with the masses and with their governors and, I am glad to say, destroyed the middle sort who are a very dull, greasy, humdrum lot at the best, rightly detested by their betters as apes and by their inferiors as immediate masters.
“And on all this I took my little commission. …
“My children! … My children! …” ended the old man, his eyes now full of frigid tears, “I had attained the summit of human life. I had all … and there descended upon me what wealth—supreme wealth—alone can give: the strong peace of the soul.”
His tears now flowed freely, and his nephews were touched beyond measure to see such emotion in one so great.
“It is,” he continued (with difficulty from his rising emotion), “it is wealth and wealth alone, wealth superior to all surrounding wealth, that can procure for man that equal vision of the world, that immense tolerance of evil, that unfailing hope for the morrow, and that profound content which furnish for the heart of man its resting place.”
Here the millionaire frankly broke down. He covered his face in his hands and his sobs were echoed by those of his respectful nephews, with the exception of the third with whom they degenerated into hiccups.
Mahmoud raised his strong, old, tear-stained features, dried his eyes and asked them (since his tale was now done) whether they had any questions to ask.
After a long interval the eldest spoke:
“Oh! My revered uncle,” said he, in an awe struck voice, “if I may make so bold … why did you leave this place of your power and return to Baghdad?”
His uncle was silent for a space and then replied in slow and measured words:
“It was in this wise. A sort of moral distemper—a mysterious inward plague—struck the people among whom I dwelt. The poor, in spite of their increased doles, seemed to grow mysteriously disinclined for work. The rich—and especially those in power—fell (I know not why!) into habits of self-indulgence. The middle class, whom I had so justly destroyed, were filled in their ruin with a vile spite and rancour. As they still commanded some remaining power of expression by pen and voice they added to the great ill ease. One evening an awful thing happened. A large pebble—one may almost call it a stone—was flung through the open lattice of my banqueting room and narrowly missed the deputy head controller who stood behind the couch where I reclined at the head of my guests.
“It was a warning from Heaven. Next day I began with infinite precautions to realize. I knew that, for some hidden reason, the country was poisoned. Parcel by parcel, lot by lot, I disposed of my lands, my shares in enterprises, my documents of mortgage and loan. By messengers I transferred this wealth to purchases in the plains about Baghdad, my native place; on the Tigris; Bonds upon the Houses of Mosul and mills on the farm colonies of the Persian hills: In promises to pay signed by the caliph and in the admitted obligations of the Lords of Bosra and the Euphrates.
“An Inner Voice said to me, ‘Mahmoud, you have achieved the peace of the soul. Do not risk it longer here.’ …
“When all my vast fortune was so transferred to Mesopotamia, I went down by a month’s journey to the seacoast, took ship, and sailed up the gulf for the home of my childhood. …
“I was but just in time! Within
