way, which could
hardly have been found without direction. Through a deserted alley,
down first one dark, stinking passage, then another, Iskender reached a
crazy door and, knocking on it twice, was told to enter.

The room within was small and very dark. It had only one window, high
up in the wall, and even that looked out upon a covered way. When
Iskender entered, the artist was in the act of rising from his knees,
having been on the floor at work upon a picture. He was a wizened
elder with a fine white beard, clad in a soiled kaftan, black turban
and big black-rimmed spectacles. Lighting a candle-end he read the
letter of the priest Mitri, and, having read, embraced his new
disciple. He took off his spectacles, brushed them, wiped his eyes
repeatedly, and then knelt again to his painting, bidding Iskender
watch the way of it. When the youth suggested that more light was
needed, Ibrahim abu Yusuf shook his head decidedly. This room, he
explained, had been chosen precisely on account of its obscurity, which
meant seclusion. Were he to ply his trade in the light of day, the
Muslim zealots of the city would speedily tear him in pieces as an
idol-maker. "Though some of them make pictures also," he explained,
"not here but in Esh-Sham and other places. They quote in excuse some
fetwah of the learned. I have no appeal; for did I quote their fetwah
they would call it blasphemy." The room, he said, possessed advantages
for health as well as privacy. Its window gave upon the market of the
shoemakers, and, when it stood open, admitted the smell of leather,
than which nothing in the world is more wholesome and invigorating.
Iskender was glad to learn that he was not required to sleep there, but
in the private house of his master, whither he was conducted at the end
of the day's work. The old man and his wife seemed pleased to have him
in the room of their only son, an adventurous youth who had gone with
merchandise to America to seek his fortune.

The Sheykh Ibrahim took great pains with his pupil's instruction, and
taught him divers little tricks which saved much trouble.

"But times are bad!" he would suspire in moments of depression. "Once
it was a profitable trade; all the pictures required used to be wrought
and purchased in the land. But now the majority of the clergy buy them
ready-made from Europe. That the Franks have a pretty, life-like trick
is undeniable; yet I think our ancient style, stiff and c