rliest convenience to the Club to meet this
gentleman. There, I am received by an Army Officer and a certain
Ahmed Bey. And after the coffee and the formalities of civility
are over, I am asked to accompany them on a tour to the
principal cities of upper Syria--to Damascus, Homs, Hama, and
Aleppo. The young Army Officer is to speechify in Turkish, I, in
Arabic, and Ahmed Bey, who is as oleaginous as a Turk could be,
will take up, I think, the collection. Seeing in this a chance
to spread the Idea among our people, I accept, and in a
fortnight we shall be in Damascus. You must come there, for I am
burning to meet and embrace you.

Letter XXV

Whom do you think I met yesterday? Why, nothing gave me greater
pleasure ever since I have been here than this: I was crossing
the Square on my way to the Club, when some one plucking at my
jubbah angrily greets me. I look back, and behold our dear old
Im-Hanna, who has just returned from New York. She stood there
waving her hand wildly and rating me for not returning her
salaam. "You know no one any more, O Khalid," she said
plaintively; "I call to you three times and you look not, hear
not. No matter, O Khalid." Thereupon, she embraces me as fondly
as my mother. "And why," she inquired, "do you wear this black
jubbah? Are you now a monk? Were it not for that long hair and
that cap of yours, I would not have known you. Let me see, isn't
that the cap I bought you in New York?" And she takes it off my
head to examine it. "Yes, that's it. How good of you to keep it.
Well, how are you now? Do you cough any more? Are you still
crazy about books? I don't think so, for you have rosy cheeks
now." And sobbing for joy, she embraces me again and again.

She is neatly dressed, wears a silk fiche, and is as alert as
ever. In the afternoon, I visit her at the Hotel, and she asks
me to accompany her to the Bank, where she cashes three bills of
exchange for three hundred pounds each! I ask her what she is
going to do with all this money, and she tells me that she is
going to build a little home for her grandson and send him to
the College of the Americans here.

"And is there like America in all the world?" she exclaims. "Ah,
my heart for America!" And on asking her why she did not remain
there: "Fear not; just as soon as I build my house and place my
son in the College I am going back to New York. What, O Khalid,