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nydus/The Book of KhalidPublic

A Lebanese iconoclast emigrates to America and embarks on a quixotic quest for the truth.

Page 94 of 298
Table of Contents

I

O’Graft; that he was Tammany’s Agent to the Editors of the Syrian newspapers of New York, whom he enrolled in the service of the Noble Cause for a consideration which no eloquence or shrewdness could reduce to a minimum; that he also took to the stump and dispensed to his fellow citizens, with rhetorical gestures at least, of the cut-and-dried logic which the Committee of Buncombe on such occasions furnishes its squad of talented spouters; and that⁠—the most important this⁠—he was subject in the end to the ignominy of waiting in the lobby with tuft-hunters and political stockjobbers, until it pleased the Committee of Buncombe and the Honourable Treasurer thereof to give him⁠—a card of dismissal!

But what virtue is there in waiting, our cynical friend would ask. Why not go home and sleep? Because, O cynical friend, the Wigwam now is Khalid’s home. For was he not, in creaking boots and a slouch hat, ceremoniously married to Democracy? Ay, and after spending their honeymoon on the Stump and living another month or two with his troll among her

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