with all his might, and if there is a compatriot within
hearing he says, '_Gesundheit_.' An Italian sneezes as if it were a
crime, with his hand over his face."

"Hush," said the commandant.

Out from the white-robed crowd came two forms, Mirza and the _oukil_.
Mirza held a paper in her hand. They went to the nearest fire and Mirza
gave the paper to the man with the green turban. He read it, thought a
moment, read it again, and then the two went back to the silent crowd
by the mosque. There was conversation, there were vehement exclamations
which, if they had been in English, would have been oaths--there was a
sudden movement of the horses and the camels; the outskirts of the
crowd surged and broke, and then, above their heads, flashed the sabres
of the _spahis_.

The commandant went to the door. "Corporal," he said, "take your men to
the mosque, join your comrades, and bring to me Abdullah, his wife,
Mirza, and the _oukil_."

The corporal saluted, gave an order, and the little troop trotted
across the square. The commandant closed the shutters of the window.

"I do not care to see the row," he said, and he lit a cigarette. But if
he did not see the row, he heard it, for presently came the yelp and
snarl of an Oriental mob.

"It is growing warm," said the commandant. "Hospitality cannot be
lightly practised here."

"Nor anywhere," said the lawyer, who had resumed his cards; "because it
is a virtue, and the virtues are out of vogue. The only really
successful life, as the world looks upon success now, is an absolutely
selfish life. It is the day of specialists, of men with one idea, one
object, and the successful man is the one who permits nothing to come
between him and his object. Wife, children, honor, friendship, ease,
all must give place to the grand pursuit; be it the gathering of
wealth, the discovery of a disease germ, the culture of orchids, or the
breeding of a honey-bee that works night and day. Human life is too
short to permit a man to do more than one thing well, and money is
becoming so common that its possessors require the best of everything."

"Old friend," said the commandant, "you are a many-sided man, and yet
you are one of the best lawyers in France."

"You have said it," exclaimed the lawyer; "_one_ of the best, not _the_
best. The one thing I have earnestly striven for I have not attained."

"What is that?" asked the commandant. "Do you wish to be Minister of
Justice?"

"No," said t