Why not,
my friend, take them boiled and drink a little hot water after them?
This savours of originality, at least, and is just as insipid, if not
more. Withal, they who boil cabbage, and heap it in a plate over a
slice of corn-beef, and call it a dish, can break a few boiled eggs in
a cup of hot water and call them fried. Be this as it may. The
Americans will be solesistically simple even in their kitchen.

"Now, my skillet of eggs being ready, I draw out of my basket a cake
of cheese, a few olives, an onion, and three paper-like loaves, rather
leaves, of bread, and fall to. With what relish, I need not say. But
let it be recorded here, that under the karob tree, on the bank of the
River Adonis, in the shadow of the great wall surrounding the ruins of
the temple of Tammuz, I Khalid, in the thirty-fourth year of the reign
of Abd'ul-Hamid, gave a banquet to the gods--who, however, were
content in being present and applauding the devouring skill of the
peptic host and toast-master. Even serene Majesty at Yieldiz would
give away, I think, an hundred of its sealed dishes for such a skillet
of eggs in such an enchanted scene. But for it, alas! such wild and
simple joy is a sealed book. Poor Serene Majesty! Now, having gone
through the fruit course--and is not the olive a fruit?--I fill my jug
at the River to make my coffee. And here I ask, In what Hotel Cecil or
Waldorf or Savoy, or in what Arab tent in the desert, can one get a
better cup of coffee than this, which Khalid makes for himself? The
gods be praised, before and after. Ay, even in washing my pots and
dishes I praise the good gods.

"And having done this, I light my cigarette, lug my basket on my back,
and again set forth. In three hours, on my way to Byblus, I reach a
hamlet situated in a deep narrow wadi, closed on all sides by huge
mountain walls. The most sequestered, the most dreary place, I have
yet seen. Here, though unwilling, the dusk of the December day having
set in, I lay down the staff of wayfare. And as I enter the little
village, I am greeted by the bleat of sheep and the low of the kine.
The first villager I meet is an aged woman, who stands in her door
before which is a pomegranate tree, telling her beads. She returns my
salaam graciously, and invites me, saying, 'Be kind to tarry
overnight.' But can one be kinder than such an hostess? Seeing that I
laid down my burden, she calls to her daughter to light the seraj
(naphtha lamp) and bring some w