I was riding on a train in Indiana when a gypsy-looking youth
came in and sat beside me. His hair was black, his skin was
yellow and he was dressed in flashy American clothes. He had a
cock-sure air about him that attracted my attention. I have
seldom seen a young man more pleased with himself. He was
entirely too cocky for me. He began talking. He said he was a
Syrian and was worth a thousand dollars. Soon he would be worth a
million, he said. He was already putting on his million-dollar
airs.

"While selling bananas and ginger pop, he told me, "I made some
money and learned the American ways. I have a brother in South
Bend who has made some money shining shoes. I am going to get my
brother and we will go back to the old home in Asia Minor. The
hills where we were born are full of coal. The people call it
black stone. They do not know that it will burn. We will go back
there with our American knowledge and set the world on fire."

There is a people who have been kicking coal around for five
thousand years and have not yet learned that it will burn. Those
hills produced gypsies who travel around cheating, dickering and
selling gewgaws that are worth nothing. They come among a people
who have used their heads. From these people they learned to heat
a banana stand with a little coal stove. Having mastered that
coal-stove principle, they are going back to their native hills
with black magic up their sleeves.

"What a superior man am I," thought that young tribesman
swollen with vanity, although he had done nothing.