For this flyaway son of a Phoenician did not seem to wait for the decision of the polyglot Judges of the Emigration Board.
And that he did escape, we are assured. For one morning he eludes the grumpy officer, and sidles out among his Italian neighbours who were permitted to land. See him genuflecting now, to kiss the curbstone and thank Allah that he is free. But before he can enjoy his freedom, before he can sit down and chuckle over the success of his escapade, he must bethink him of Khalid. He will not leave him to the mercy of the honourable Agents of the Law, if he can help it. Trachoma, he knows, is a hard case to cure. And in ten days, under the care of the doctors, it might become worse. Straightway, therefore, he puts himself to the dark task. A few visits to the Hospital where Khalid is detained—the patients in those days were not held at Ellis Island—and the intrigue is afoot. On the third or fourth visit, we can not make out which, a note in Arabic is slipt into Khalid’s pocket, and with a significant Arabic sign, Shakib takes himself off.
The evening of that very day, the trachoma-afflicted Syrian was absent from the ward. He was carried off by Iblis—the porter and a few Greenbacks assisting. Yes, even Shakib, who knew only a few English monosyllables, could here make himself understood.
For money is one of the two universal languages of the world, the other being love. Indeed, money and love are as eloquent in Turkey and Dahomey as they are in Paris or New York.
And here we reach one of those hedges in the Histoire Intime which we must go through in spite of the warning-signs.
Between two paragraphs, to be plain, in the one of which we are told how the two Syrians established themselves as merchants in New York, in the other, how and wherefor they shouldered the peddling-box and took to the road, there is a crossed paragraph containing a most significant revelation.