repose undisturbed upon his features--but you must excuse me, I hear the
Holy Men," and indeed from the inner room came a noise of speechifying
in that doleful sing-song which is associated in Bagdad with the
practice of religion.

The gentlemen who had thus had the luck to interview Mahmoud's-Nephew
with such success in the matter of the Diamond Island, soon spread about
the news, and confirmed their fellow-citizens in the certitude that a
great financier is neither talkative nor vivacious. "Still waters run
deep," they said, and all those to whom they said it nodded in a wise
acquiescence. Nor had the Manager the least difficulty in receiving one
set of customers after another and in negotiating within three weeks an
infinite amount of business, all of which confirmed those who had the
pleasure of an audience with the stuffed dummy that great fortunes were
made and retained by reticence and a contempt for convivial weakness.

At last the ingenious man of affairs, to whom the whole combination was
due, was not a little disturbed to receive from the Caliph a note
couched in the following terms:

"The Commander of the Faithful and the Servant of the Merciful whose
name be exalted, to the Nephew of Mahmoud:

"My Lord:--

"It has been the custom since the days of my grandfather (May his soul
see God!) for the more wealthy of the Faithful to be called to my
councils, and upon my summoning them thither it has not been unusual for
them to present sums varying in magnitude but always proportionate to
their total fortunes. My court will receive signal honour if you will