_Inshallah! Alhandulillah!"_ he concluded, his rising excitement for
once bursting the carefully nourished bounds of English and overflowing
into Arabic expletive.

Noting his own lapse into his native language, he looked sheepishly at
Kirby, as though hoping the American had not heard the break. Then, with
mounting eagerness, Najib struck the climax of his narrative.

"To speak with a briefness, howadji," he proclaimed grandiloquently. "We
have all stroked ourselfs!"

"You've all done--what?" asked the puzzled Kirby.

"Not we alone, howadji," amended Najib, "but you also! We would not
berich ourselves and leave you outward in the plan. It is you also who
are to stroke yourself. And--"

"For the love of Heaven!" exclaimed Kirby in sudden loss of patience.
"What are you driving at? What do you mean about 'stroking yourselves'?
Say it in Arabic. Then perhaps I can find what you mean."

"It is not to be said in the Arabic, howadji," returned Najib, wincing
at this slur on his English. "For there is not such a thing in the
Arabic as to make strike. We make strike. Thus I say it we 'stroke
ourselves.' If it is the wrong way for saying it--"

"Strike?" repeated Kirby, perplexed. "What do you mean? Are you still
thinking about what I told you to-day? If you are going--"

"I have bethought of it, howadji, ever since," was the reply. "And it is