"Yet Madame was wishful, and I was wishful too, that the children--if
we had any--should not grow up Eastern. It was a natural and a beautiful
desire, sir, was it not?"

"Oh, very," replied the Prophet, considerably confused.

"The habits and manners of the East, you see, sir, are not always in
strict accordance with propriety. Are they?"

Before the Prophet had time to realise that this question was merely
rhetorical, he began,--

"From what Professor Seligman says in his _The Inner History of
Baghdad_, I feel sure--"

"Nor are the customs of the East quite what many a clergyman would
approve of," continued Malkiel. "Yet even this was not what weighed most
with Madame."

"What was it then?" inquired the Prophet, deeply interested.

"Sir, it was the Eastern language."

"Ah!"

"Could we let our children learn to speak it? Could we bear to launch
them in life, handicapped, weighed down by such a tongue? Could we do
this?"

Again the Prophet mistook the nature of the question, and was led to