we Masdakites hope for, our time is not yet come."

"And suppose it were, and that the hanging were yours?"

"I should sell it and add the price to my savings, and go home and buy
some land, and take a pretty wife, and breed camels and horses."

"And next day would come the poorer men who had laid nothing by, and had
made no bargain over hangings and sunsets; and they would ask for a share
of your land, and a camel and a foal each, and you would not be able ever
to see a sunset again but must wander about the world, and your pretty
wife with you to help you share everything with others.--Let us abide by
the old order, my Rustem, and may the Most High preserve you your good
heart, for you have but a foolish and crotchety head."

The big man bent over his master and gratefully kissed his arm; at this
moment the guide rejoined them, but with a long face for he had promised
more than he could perform. The Mukaukas George had set out--a quite
unheard of event--for an excursion on the river in his barge, with his
son and the ladies of the house just as he was hoping to secure an
audience for the Arab. Orion's return--the steward had explained--had
made the old man quite young again. Haschim must now wait till the
morrow, and he, the guide, would counsel him to pass the night in the
city at an inn kept by one Moschion, where he would be well cared for.

But the merchant preferred to remain where he was. He did not care
about the delay, more particularly as he wished to consult an Egyptian
physician with regard to an old standing complaint he suffered from,
and there was no more skilful or learned leech in the whole land,
the Egyptian guide assured him, than the famous Philip of Memphis. The