is a dancing group under which is written: "The Stockbrokers and the
Dervishes." And around these symbols, in Arabic circlewise, these
words:--"_And this is my Book, the Book of Khalid, which I dedicate to
my Brother Man, my Mother Nature, and my Maker God._"

Needless to say we asked at once the Custodian of the Library to give
us access to this Book of Khalid, and after examining it, we hired an
amanuensis to make a copy for us. Which copy we subsequently used as
the warp of our material; the woof we shall speak of in the following
chapter. No, there is nothing in this Work which we can call ours,
except it be the Loom. But the weaving, we assure the Reader, was a
mortal process; for the material is of such a mixture that here and
there the raw silk of Syria is often spun with the cotton and wool of
America. In other words, the Author dips his antique pen in a modern
inkstand, and when the ink runs thick, he mixes it with a slabbering
of slang. But we started to write an Introduction, not a Criticism.
And lest we end by writing neither, we give here what is more to the
point than anything we can say: namely, Al-Fatihah, or the Opening
Word of Khalid himself.

With supreme indifference to the classic Arabic proem, he begins by
saying that his Book is neither a Memoir nor an Autobiography, neither
a Journal nor a Confession.

"Orientals," says he, "seldom adventure into that region of fancy and
fabrication so alluring to European and American writers; for, like
the eyes of huris, our vanity is soft and demure. This then is a book
of travels in an impalpable country, an enchanted country, from which
we have all risen, and towards which we are still rising. It is, as it
were, the chart and history of one little kingdom of the Soul,--the
Soul of a philosopher, poet and criminal. I am all three, I swear, for
I have lived both the wild and the social life. And I have thirsted in
the desert, and I have thirsted in the city: the springs of the former
were dry; the water in the latter was frozen in the pipes. That is
why, to save my life, I had to be an incendiary at times, and at
others a footpad. And whether on the streets of knowledge, or in the
open courts of love, or in the parks of freedom, or in the cellars and
garrets of thought and devotion, the only _saki_ that would give me a
drink without the asking was he who called himself Patience....

"And so, the Book of Khalid was written. It is the only one I wrote in
t