love of Allah, same as him. This American was going to conquer like
Cortez, but his name was Thomas Tilman Lacey, and he had a lot of gall.
After years of earnest effort, he lost his hair and the millions of the
Infatuated Conquistadores. And by-and-by he came to Cairo with a
thimbleful of income, and began to live again. There was a civil war
going on in his own country, but he thought that one out of forty
millions would not be strictly missed. So he stayed in Egypt; and the
tale of his days in Egypt, is it not written with a neboot of domwood in
the book of Mahommed Hassan the scribe?"

He paused and beamed upon the watchful Mahommed, who, if he did not
understand all that had been said, was in no difficulty as to the drift
and meaning of the story.

"Aiwa, effendi," he urged impatiently. "It is a long ride to the Etl
Tree, and the day is far spent."

"Inshallah, you shall hear, my turtle-dove! One day there came to Cairo,
in great haste, a man from Mexico, looking for the foolish one called T.
T. Lacey, bearing glad news. And the man from Mexico blew his trumpet,
and straightway T. T. Lacey fell down dismayed. The trumpet said that a
million once lost in Mexico was returned, with a small flock of other
millions; for a mine, in which it was sunk, had burst forth with a stony
stream of silver. And behold! Thomas Tilman Lacey, the despised waster
of his patrimony and of other people's treasure, is now, O son of the
fig-flower, richer than Kaid Pasha and all his eunuchs."

Suddenly Mahommed Hassan leaned forward, then backward, and, after the
fashion of desert folk, gave a shrill, sweet ululation that seemed to
fill the palace.