Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1929-10-27

henchman to correct or amend the days tally
sheet.
Wherefore the list in his hand, the American
strolled down from his own knoll-top tent to-
ward Najib's quarters. AS Najib was superin-
tendent, and thus technically an official, Kirby
could make such domiciliary visits without loss
of prestige.
Just outside the radius of the fellaheen'S fire.
light, Kirby paused. For he heard Najib's shrill
voice uplifted in speech. And amusedly he
halted and prepared to turn back. He had no
wish to break in upon harangue so interesting
as the speaker seemed to find this one.
Najib's voice was pitched far above the tones
of normal Eastern conversation-louder and
more excited even than that of a professional
story-teller.
Yet at a stray word of Najib's, Kirby checked
involuntarily his own retreat and paused again
to look back. There stood Najib in the center
of the firelit circle, hands and head in wild
motion. Around him, Spellbound, Squatted the
ring of his dark-faced and unwashed hearers.
The superintendent, being with his own people,
was Grating in pure Arabic-or, rather, in the
colloquial vernacuIar which is as close to pure
Arabic as one can expect to hear except among
the remoter Bedouins.
Thus it isl" he was declaiming. Even as I
have sought to show you, oh, addle-witted off,
spring of NANCY camels and one-eyed mules!
In that far country, when men are dissatisfied
with their wage, they take counsel together and
labor no more unless our hire be greater and our
toll hours leSSr Then go they to their sheikh
or whomever he be who hath hired them, and
they say to him: oh, favored of Allah be-
hold we must have such and such wage and
such and such hours of laborr Then doth their
sheikh cast ashes up his beard and rend his
garments. For doth he not know his fate Is
upon him and that his breath is in his nostrils?
Yet will they not listen to his prayers, but at
once they make strike
Then doth their sheikh betake himself to
the pasha with his grievance; beseeching the
pasha with many rich gifts, that he will throw
those strike making laborers into prison and
Scourge their kinsmen with the kourbash But
the pasha makest answer, with tears: 10, I arm
helpless! What saith the law? It saith that
man may strike at will, and that his employer
must pay what is demanded"
A ND Kirby waited to hear no more. With
a groan of disgust at the orators imbecility
he went back up the hill to his own tent.
Stretching himself out lazily in his long chair
Kirby exhumed from a shirt pocket his disrepu-
table briar pipe and filled and lighted it. The
big white Syrian stars glnted down on him
from black velvet sky. Along the nearer peaks
and hollows of the Moab Mountains the knots
Of prowling jackals kept up a running chorus OF
yapping-a discordant chant punctuated now
and then by the far-away howl of a hunting
wolf, by the choking laugh" of hyena
in the valley below, who thus gave forth the
news of some especially delicious bit of carrion
discovered among the rocks.
And Kirby reminded of Najib's quoted
dictum that Laughter is for women and for
hyenas."
The Syrian had been his comrade in many a
vicissitude And he knew that Najib's fondness
for him was as sincere can be that of any
Oriental for foreigner, an affection based not
wholly on self-interest. Kirby enjoyed his eve-
ming powwows with the superintendent beside
the campfire, and the little mans amazing
faculty for mangling the English tongue.
He rather missed Najib's presence tonight