But our Scribe, though never remiss when Khalid is in a pickle, finds much amiss in Khalid’s thoughts and sentiments. And as a further illustration of the limpid shallows of the one and the often opaque depths of the other, we give space to the following:
“When Khalid was ordered to appear before the Boss,” writes Shakib, “such curiosity and anxiety as I felt at that time made me accompany him. For I was anxious about Khalid, and curious to see this great Leader of men. We set out, therefore, together, I musing on an incident in Baalbek when we went out to meet the Pasha of the Lebanons and a droll old peasant, having seen him for the first time, cried out, ‘I thought the Pasha to be a Pasha, but he’s but a man.’ And I am sorry, after having seen the Boss, I can not say as much for him.”
Here follows a little philosophising, unbecoming of our Scribe, on men and names and how they act and react upon each other. Also, a page about his misgivings and the effort he made to persuade Khalid not to appear before the Boss. But skipping over these, “we reach the Tammany Wigwam and are conducted by a thickset, heavy-jowled, heavy-booted citizen through the long corridor into a little square room occupied by a little square-faced clerk. Here we wait a half hour and more, during which the young gentleman, with his bell before him and his orders to minor clerks who come and go, poses as somebody of some importance. We are then asked to follow him from one room into another, until we reach the one adjoining the private office of the Boss. A knock or two are executed on the door of Greatness with a nauseous sense of awe, and ‘Come in,’ Greatness within huskily replies. The square-faced clerk enters, shuts the door after him, returns in a trice, and conducts us into the awful Presence. Ye gods of Baalbek, the like of this I never saw before. Here is a room sumptuously furnished with sofas and fauteuils, and rugs from Isfahan. On the walls are pictures of Washington, Jefferson, and the great Boss Tweed; and right under the last named, behind that preciously carved mahogany desk, in that soft rolling mahogany chair, is the squat figure of the big Boss. On the desk before him, besides a plethora of documents, lay many things pell-mell, among which I noticed a box of cigars, the Criminal Code, and, most prominent of all, the Boss’ feet, raised there either to bid us welcome, or to remind us of his power. And the rich Isfahan rug, the cuspidor being small and overfull, receives the richly coloured matter which he spurts forth every time he takes the cigar out of his mouth. O, the vulgarity, the bestiality of it! Think of those poor patient Persian weavers who weave the tissues of their hearts into such beautiful work, and of this proud and paltry Boss, whose office should have been furnished with straw. Yes, with straw; and the souls of those poor artist-weavers will sleep in peace. O, the ignominy of having such precious pieces of workmanship under the feet and spittle of such vulgar specimens of humanity. But if the Boss had purchased these rugs himself, with money earned by his own brow-sweat, I am sure he would appreciate them better. He would then know, if not their intrinsic worth, at least their market value. Yes, and they were presented to him by someone needing, I suppose, police connivance and protection. The first half of this statement I had from the Boss himself; the second, I base on Khalid’s knowingness and suspicion. Be this, however, as it may.
“When we entered this sumptuously furnished office, the squat figure in the chair under the picture of Boss Tweed, remained as immobile as a fixture and did not as much as reply to our salaam. But he pointed disdainfully to seats in the corner of the room, saying, ‘Sit down there,’ in a manner quite in keeping with his stogies raised on the desk directly in our face. Such freedom, nay, such bestiality, I could never tolerate. Indeed, I prefer the suavity and palaver of Turkish officials, no matter how crafty and corrupt, to the puffing, spitting manners of these come-up-from-the-shamble men. But Khalid could sit there as immobile as the Boss himself, and he did so, billah! For he was thinking all the while, as he told me when we came out, not of such matters as grate on the susceptibilities of a poet, but on the one sole idea of how such a bad titman could lead by the nose so many good people.”
Shakib then proceeds to give us a verbatim report of the interview. It begins with the Boss’ question, “What do you mean by writing such a letter?” and ends with this other, “What do you mean by immanent morality?” The reader, given the head and tail of the matter, can supply the missing parts. Or, given its two bases, he can construct this triangle of Politics, Ethics, and the Constable, with Khalid’s letter, offended Majesty, and a prison cell, as its three turning points. We extract from the report, however, the concluding advice of the Boss. For when he asked Khalid again what he meant by immanent morality, he continued in a crescendo of indignation: “You mean the morality of hayseeds, and priests, and philosophical fools? That sort of morality will not as much as secure a
