and Mar-Kizhayiah. Indeed, Im-Hanna seriously believed that Khalid should be taken to Mar-Kizhayiah. She did not know that New York was full of such institutions. Her scolding, however, seemed to have more effect on Khalid than my reasoning. And consenting to go out with me, he got up the following morning, took down his stock from the shelf, every little article of it—he left nothing there—and packed all into his peddling-box. He then squeezed into the bottom drawer, which he had filled with scapulars, the bottle with a little of the Stuff in it. For we were in accord about this, that in New York whiskey is better than arak. And we both took a nip now and then. So I thought the bottle was in order. But why he placed his bank book, which was no longer worth a straw, into that bottom drawer, I could not guess. With these preparations, however, we shouldered our boxes, and in an hour we were in the suburbs. We foot it along then, until we reach a row of cottages not far from the railway station. ‘Will you knock at one of these doors,’ I asked. And he, ‘I do not feel like chaffering and bargaining this morning.’ ‘Why then did you come out,’ I urged. And he, in an air of nonchalance, ‘Only for the walk.’ And so, we pursued our way in the Bronx, until we reached one of our favourite spots, where a sycamore tree seemed to invite us to its ample shade.
“Here, Khalid, absentminded, laid down his box and sat upon it, and I stretched my limbs on the grass. But of a sudden, he jumped up, opened the bottom drawer of his case, and drew from it the bottle.
It is quite in order now, I mused; but ere I had enjoyed the thought, Khalid had placed his box at a little distance, and, standing there beside it, bottle in hand, delivered himself in a semi-solemn, semi-mocking manner of the following:
‘This is the oil,’ I remember him saying, ‘with which I anoint thee—the extreme unction I apply to thy soul.’