ned the money, as he would no doubt have done, the offer would
have told him we were earnest in our application, and he might
conceivably have taken action from desire to do a pleasure to one
whom, as I said before, he loved at sight.'

'The whole system is corrupt,' I said, 'and what is worse,
unreasonable.'

'So say the Franks,' replied Suleyman, shrugging his shoulders up and
spreading wide his hands, as though before a wall of blind stupidity
which he knew well could never be cast down nor yet surmounted. 'Our
governors, our judges, and the crowd of small officials are not highly
paid, and what they do receive is paid irregularly. Then all, whether
high or low, must live; and it is customary in our land to offer
gifts to persons in authority, because a smile, God knows, is always
better than a frown from such an one. We are not like the Franks, who
barter everything, even their most sacred feelings, even love. It
gives us pleasure to make gifts, and see them welcomed, even when the
recipient is someone who cannot in any way repay us for our trouble,
as a Frank would say.'

'But to sell justice; for it comes to that!' I cried, indignant.

'Who talks of selling justice? You are quite mistaken. If I have to go
before a judge I make a gift beforehand to his Honour, whose
acceptance tells me, not that he will give a verdict in my favour--do
not think it!--but merely that his mind contains no grudge against me.
If he refused the gift I should be terrified, since I should think he
had been won completely by the other side. To take gifts from both
parties without preference, making allowance, when there is occasion,
for the man who is too poor to give; and then to judge entirely on the
merits of the case; that is the way of upright judges in an Eastern
country. The gifts we make are usually small, whereas the fees which
lawyers charge in Western countries are exorbitant, as you yourself
have told me more than once and I have heard from others. And even
after paying those enormous fees, the inoffensive, righteous person is
as like to suffer as the guilty. Here, for altogether harmless men to
suffer punishment in place of rogues is quite unheard-of; though
occasionally one notorious evildoer may be punished for another's
crime when this is great and the real criminal cannot be found and
there is call for an example to be made upon the instant. This
generally happens when a foreign consul interferes, demanding
vengeance f