But the great ones spake and said, denying Ali: "We will make no such
bottle for your stopper nor stop our healthy factories or good trains,
nor cease from our digging of pits nor do anything that you desire,
for an interference with steam would strike at the roots of that
prosperity that you see so plentifully all around us."

Thus they dismissed Ali there and then from that place where the earth
was torn up and burnt, being taken out of pits, and where factories
blazed all night with a demoniac glare; and they dismissed with him
both Shooshan, the barber, and Shep, the maker of teeth: so that a
week later Ali started from Calais on his long walk back to Persia.

And all this happened thirty years ago, and Shep is an old man now and
Shooshan older, and many mouths have bit with the teeth of Shep (for
he has a knack of getting them back whenever his customers die), and
they have written again to Ali away in the country of Persia with
these words, saying:

"O Ali. The devil has indeed begotten a devil, even that spirit
Petrol. And the young devil waxeth, and increaseth in lustihood and is
ten years old and becoming like to his father. Come therefore and help
us with the ineffable seal. For there is none like Ali."

And Ali turns where his slaves scatter rose-leaves, letting the letter
fall, and deeply draws from his hookah a puff of the scented smoke,
right down into his lungs, and sighs it forth and smiles, and lolling
round on to his other elbow speaks comfortably and says, "And shall a
man go twice to the help of a dog?"

And with these words he thinks no more of England but ponders again