her,
took her in his arms, lifted her, turned, entered the hut, passed to
the inner room, laid her upon a low couch, beneath the window, put away
her veil, kissed her hand, not her lips, and came out.

In the outer room he found his host. Upon the table were some small
cheeses, a loaf of bread, a gourd of milk. Abdullah fell upon the food.

"Well, my son," said his host, after Abdullah began to pick and choose,
"what brings you to me?"

"This," said Abdullah, and he felt in his bosom, and drew out the
invoice of his passenger.

His host took from a book upon the table a pair of steel-bowed
spectacles--the only pair in the Sahara. He placed the bow upon his
nose, the curves behind his ears, snuffed the taper with his fingers,
took the invoice from Abdullah, and read. He read it once, looked up,
and said nothing. He read it a second time, looked up, and said: "Well,
what of it?"

"Is it legal?" asked Abdullah.

"Doubtless," said his host, "since it is a hiring, merely, not a sale;
and it is to be executed in Biskra, which is under the French rule."

"The French rule is beneficent, doubtless?" asked Abdullah.

His host did not answer for some minutes; then he said: "It is a
compromise; and certain souls deem compromises to be justice. The real
men of this age, as of all others, do not compromise; they fight out
right and wrong to a decision. The French came into Algeria to avenge a
wrong. They fought, they conquered, and then they compromised. Having
compromised, they must fight and conquer all over again."

"You are a Frenchman, are you not?" asked Abdullah.

"No," replied his host, "I am a Parisian."

"Ah," exclaimed Abdullah, "I thought they were the same thing."

"Far from it," replied his host. "In Brittany, Frenchmen wear black to
this day for the king whom Parisians guillotined."

"Pardon," said Abdullah; "I have been taught that Paris is French."

"Not so, my son," rejoined his host; "Paris is universal. If you will
go to the Museum of the Louvre, and take a seat before the Venus of
Milo, and will remain long enough, everybody in this world, worth
knowing, will pass by you; crowned heads, diplomats, financiers, the
demimonde; you may meet them all. They tell me that the same thing
happens to the occupant of the corner table of the Cafe de la Paix--the
table next to the Avenue de l'Opera; if he waits long enough, he will
see every one--"

"Pardon me, Monsieur," said Abdullah, "but I care to see no