his chair, turning to Gerard his gaze of shining
acknowledgment and measureless content. "I don't think I ever spent such
an all-round good old day, just all right all through. I shall have to
tie a gold medal on the calendar, or mark it with a white stone, or----"

"Or drop a pearl in the vase of Al-Mansor," Gerard suggested. His own
feelings were not very far removed from Corrie's, that night.

"What is that?" Isabel questioned. "I never heard that story. What is
the vase of Al-Mansor?"

"A legend of the days of the caliphs. If you care about it, some day I
will find a copy to send."

"Some day! I want to hear it now."

"Tell us, with all the trimmings," Corrie urged, "No sliding around the
flowery parts and cutting scenes, but the full performance. Flavia loves
that sort of thing, too; she and I grew up on the Arabian Nights and
Byron and Irving. We dramatized 'The Fall of Granada,' for the toy
theatre, but Bulwer was dead, so it didn't matter.

"Perkins, up in my den you'll find a five-pound box of Turkish Delight,
sent to-night from the candy shop; bring it here to help the Oriental
atmosphere."

Flavia looked up, and Gerard caught her eyes, no longer quite untroubled
before his own.

"What a set of comparisons to face," he deprecated. "Shall I dare it,
Miss Rose?"

"Would you leave us to suffer all the pangs of unsatisfied curiosity?"
she wondered. "To dream all night of elusive pearls that disappear in
their vase as Cleopatra's in her goblet of vinegar?"

Mr. Rose took a cigar and a match, nodding humorously at his guest.

"You're in for it," he signified. "Better get it over."

"And no cutting," exacted Corrie, _sotto voce_.

"Very well, then; pray imagine yourselves in the bazaar, and remember
this isn't my fault," Gerard submitted. He paused, assembling his
recollections. "On ascending the throne at Bagdad, in the full noon of
the glory of the caliphs; it is told that Al-Mamoun, the son of
Haroun-al-Raschid, the great-grandson of Al-Mansor, received from the
former vizier a small golden vase.

"'Lord of the East, newly-risen Sun of the true believers,' said the
vizier, 'your great-grandfather of venerated memory caused to be made
this vase, proposing to place therein a pearl for every day of perfect
happiness he should pass. And when he received the vase from the
goldsmith, he complained that the vase was too small. But, alas, the
mighty Al-Mansor died without ever putting in a single pearl, f