officer, or vizier."

[Illustration: "'TIME OF ABRAHAM!' I EXCLAIMED."]

I sprang from my chair. "Time of Abraham!" I exclaimed. "This is simply--"

"No; it is not," he interrupted, and speaking in perfect good humor.
"I beg you will sit down and listen to me. What I have to say to you is
not nearly so wonderful as the nature and power of electricity."

I obeyed; he had touched me on a tender spot, for I am an electrician,
and can appreciate the wonderful.

"There has been a great deal of discussion," he continued, "in regard to
the peculiar title given to Alexander, but the appellation 'two-horned'
has frequently been used in ancient times. You know Michelangelo gave
two horns to Moses; but he misunderstood the tradition he had heard, and
furnished the prophet with real horns. Alexander wore his hair arranged
over his forehead in the shape of two protruding horns. This was simply
a symbol of high authority; as the bull is monarch of the herd, so was
he monarch among men. He was the first to use this symbol, although it
was imitated afterward by various Eastern potentates.

"As I have said, Alexander was a man of enterprise, and it had come to his
knowledge that there existed somewhere a certain spring the waters of
which would confer immortality upon any descendant of Shem who should
drink of them, and he started out to find this spring. I traveled with
him for more than a year. It was on this journey that he visited Abraham
when the latter was building the great edifice which the Mohammedans claim
as their holy temple, the Kaaba.