ured in education, and taken nothing. Then there are thousands
of Arabs, living in hovels because there's nothing better, who
have been to America and brought back memories with them. All
that accounts for the desire for an American mandate--which would
be a very bad thing, though, because the moment we set up a
government we would lose our chance to be disinterested. The
country is better off under any other mandate, provided it gives
Americans the right to teach without ruling. America's mission
is educational. There's an American, though, who might seem to
prove the contrary. Do you see him?"

There were two Arabs in the room, talking in low tones over by
the window. I could imagine the smaller of the two as a peddler
of lace and filigree-silver in the States, who had taken out
papers for the sake of privilege and returned full of notions to
exploit his motherland. But the tall one--never. He was a
Bedouin, if ever a son of the desert breathed. If he had visited
the States, then he had come back as unchanged as gold out of an
acid bath; and as for being born there--

"That little beady-eyed, rat-faced fellow may be an American," I
said. "In fact, of course he is, since you say so. But as for
being up to any good--"

"You're mistaken. You're looking at the wrong man. Observe the
other one."

I was more than ever sure I was not mistaken. Stately gesture,
dignity, complexion, attitude--to say nothing of his Bedouin
array and the steadiness with which he kept his dark eyes fixed
on the smaller man he was talking to, had laid the stamp of the
desert on the taller man from head to heel.

"That tall man is an American officer in the British army.
Doesn't look the part, eh? They say he was the first American to
be granted a commission without any pretense of his being a
Canadian. They accepted him as an American. It was a case of
that or nothing. Lived here for years, and knew the country so
well that they felt they had to have him on his own terms."

You can believe anything in Jerusalem after you have been in the
place a week or two, so, seeing who my informant was, I swallowed
the fact. But it was a marvel. It seemed even greater when the
man strolled out, pausing to salute my host with the solemn
politeness that warfare with the desert breeds. You could not
imagine that at Ellis Island, or on Broadway--even on the stage.
It was too untheatrical to be acting; too individual to be
imitati