I was above the clouds, even above the stars. The gabled
houses overtopping each other, spreading in clusters and half-circles,
form here an aigrette, as it were, on the sylvan head of the mountain,
there a necklace on its breast, below a cestus brilliant with an
hundred lights. I descend into the village and stop before the first
house I reach. The door is wide open; and the little girl who sees me
enter runs in fright to tell her mother. Straightway, the woman and
her son, a comely and lusty youth, come out in a where-is-the-brigand
manner, and, as they see me, stand abashed, amazed. The young man who
wore a robe-de-chambre and Turkish slippers worked in gold, returns my
salaam courteously and invites me up to the divan. There is a spark of
intelligence in his eyes, and an alien affectation in his speech. I
foresaw that he had been in America. He does not ask me the
conventional questions about my religious persuasion; but after his
inquiries of whence and whither, he offers me an Egyptian cigarette,
and goes in to order the coffee. It did not occur to him that I was
his guest for the night.--

"Ah me, I no longer know how to recline on a cushion, and a rug under
my feet seems like a sheet of ice. But with my dust and mud I seem
like Diogenes trampling upon Plato's pride. I survey the hall, which
breathes of rural culture and well-being, and in which is more
evidence of what I foresaw. On the wall hung various photographs and
oil prints, among which I noticed those of the King and Queen of
England, that of Theodore Roosevelt, a framed cartoon by an American
artist, an autographed copy of an English Duke's, and a large
photograph of a banquet of one of the political Clubs of New York. On
the table were a few Arabic magazines, a post-card album, and a
gramophone! Yes, mine host was more than once in the United States.
And knowing that I, too, had been there, he is anxious to display
somewhat of his broken English. His father, he tells me, speaks
English even as good as he does, having been a dragoman for forty
years.

"After supper, he orders me a narghilah, and winds for my entertainment
that horrible instrument of torture." Khalid did not seem to mind it;
but he was anxious about the sacred peace of the hills, sleeping in
the bosom of night. My Name is Billy Muggins, I Wish I Had a Pal Like
You, Tickle Me, Timothy, and such like ragtime horrors come all the
way from America to violate the antique grandeur and beauty