you do, if in the end you discover that I am in the
right?'

"Here he paused a moment, and, casting on me a benignant glance, makes
this reply: 'Then, I will rejoice, rejoice,' he gasped; 'for we shall
both be in the right. You will become an anarchist like me and not
against the wretched authorities of the world, but against your real
enemies, Instinct and Reason.'

"And thus, now and then, he would salt his argument with a pinch of
casuistic wit. Once he was hard set, and, to escape the alternatives
of the situation, he condescended to tell me the story of his first
and only love.

"'In my youth,' said the Hermit, 'I was a shoemaker, and not a little
fastidious as a craftsman. In fact, I am, and always have been, an
extremist, a purist. I can not tolerate the cobblings of life. Either
do your work skilfully, devotedly, earnestly, or do it not. So, as a
shoemaker, I succeeded very well. Truth to tell, my work was as good,
as neat, as elegant as that of the best craftsman in Beirut. And you
know, Beirut is noted for its shoemakers. Yes, I was successful as any
of them, and I counted among my customers the bishop of the diocese
himself. One day, forgive me, Allah! a young girl, the daughter of a
peasant neighbour, comes into the shop to order a pair of shoes. In
taking the measure of her foot--but I must not linger on these
details. A shoemaker can not fail to notice the shape of his
customer's foot. Well, I measured, too, her ankle--ah, forgive me,
Allah!

"'In brief, when the shoes were finished--I spent a whole day in the
finishing touches--I made her a present of them. And she, in
recognition of my favor, made a plush tobacco bag, on which my name
was worked in gold threads, and sent it to me, wrapped in a silk
handkerchief, with her brother. Now, that is the opening chapter. I
will abruptly come to the last, skipping the intermediate parts, for
they are too silly, all of them. I will only say that I was as
earnest, as sincere, as devoted in this affair of love as I was in my
craft. Of a truth, I was mad about both.

"'Now the closing chapter. One day I went to see her--we were
engaged--and found she had gone to the spring for water. I follow her
there and find her talking to a young man, a shoemaker like myself.
No, he was but a cobbler. On the following day, going again to see
her, I find this cobbler there. I remonstrate with her, but in vain.
And what is worse, she had sent to him the shoes I made, to be