our Scribe; “he won the battle.” And he slept in the temple, in the portico thereof, as sound as a muleteer. And the swallows in the niches above heard him sleep.
In the morning he girds his loins with a firm resolution. No longer will he darken his father’s door. He becomes a muleteer and accomplishes the success of which we have spoken. His first beau ideal was to own the best horse in Baalbek; and to be able to ride to the camp of the Arabs and be mistaken for one of them, was his first great ambition. Which he realises sooner than he thought he would. For thrift, grit and perseverance, are a few of the rough grains in his character. But no sooner he is possessed of his ideal than he begins to loosen his hold upon it. He sold his mare to the tourist, and was glad he did not attain the same success in his first love. For he loved his mare, and he could not have loved his cousin Najma more. “The realisation is a terrible thing,” writes our Scribe, quoting his Master. But when this fine piece of wisdom was uttered, whether when he was sailing paper boats in Baalbek, or unfurling his sails in New York, we can not say.