ant to command, provided only that they did not bully him.

The holidays he spent at first in a household recommended by the man who had escorted him to England; but afterwards, when his popularity was established, at the homes of schoolfellows; upon whose sisters he cast longing eyes made shy by fear of vengeance did he dare assail them.

He

At his studies he was very diligent, and quite as happy as at play. was quick at languages, and great at every science that depends on formulas. As his mental power increased he could deduce from what he learnt corollaries, which, however, never passed the mental sphere, or bore the slightest application to the facts of life. Learning was, for him, a game of the wits, worth playing chiefly since it won applause. He became as popular with the masters as among the boys.

"I am not only equal with the English," he was able to write to his father; "but am on my way to become the chief among them. I am praised daily by my instructors; all my comrades love me."

In the same letter he asked his father's permission to proceed to the University, as that was the chief place for the formation of Character, no Englishman being regarded as complete who had not been there. In conclusion, he assured his father that the cost of living at the University would not exceed the sum which was being paid annually for his schooling. His father consented, in a letter full of moral reflections, urging him to seek and secure for himself karakter as the talisman of all success in life.

Therefore, in course of time, he went to Cambridge, changed his friends and learnt new formulas, was initiated into the mysteries of love and fashion, and shone in colored shirts, in ties, in waistcoats. He bought a little dog and tried to like it, but every time the

He

creature licked his hand he shuddered, conscious of extreme uncleanness. was in his second year, at home and popular, with the prospect of distinction in the Mathematical Tripos, when a letter from his father shattered everything.

"Seeing thou art now a man full grown," wrote the Sheykh Abdul Câder, "and must by now have learnt karakter and all the other wiles of the English, tarry there no longer, for my heart yearns after thee. Besides, a certain great one with a kindness for me promises to exert his influence on thy behalf, to obtain for thee a good position in the government. So return to us at once without delay, and may Allah strengthen and preserve thee ever."

When Ahmed opened and perused this letter he was not alone. A man named Barnes, a mild and weak-eyed youth, was seated with him, smoking a briar pipe, in Ahmed's cosy rooms, whose walls were hung with photographs of grinning women.

"What a nuisance!" said Ahmed, frowning in the approved English manner, though his heart was glad. "Dashit-all, my dear ole man, I'm to go back to Egypt at once; the gufnor says so. Must gif up thought of my degree. The dear ole gufnor. He doesn't know how much it means to me."

"Can't you write and explain to him?" said Barnes feelingly.

"No, no, my dear ole chab! Impossible! He would neffer understand." Here Ahmed sighed profoundly. "We are still awf'ly primitif at home in Egypt-quite behind the times.

I must leaf at the end of term; there's no helb for it. I shall be deflish sorry to leaf all you dear good fellows."

"I shall be sorry too," said Barnes heartily.

This Barnes was of the order of amateur missionaries to be found in every generation of undergraduates, for

whom the Mohammedanism of Ahmed Abdul Câder was an irresistible attraction. The gentleness and urbanity of Barnes pleased Ahmed greatly; they had become inseparables and, without any promise of conversion, it was understood between them that Ahmed was to be the apostle of a new era in his native land. Barnes made his friend a parting gift: the Bible, which Ahmed accepted with a profusion of thanks, even with tears, hardly restraining the impulse to embrace the donor. But in the confusion of packing he forgot the present, which thus, being left behind, became the perquisite of his bed-maker.

Ahmed was extremely glad to go. He looked forward with a natural longing to his father's house, to the sight of camels raising dust upon the Nile bank, of buffaloes wallowing and grunting in a reedy pool. To see the crowd of fellahîn assembled at the wayside station, to hear the familiar greetings as his father kissed him, was like waking from a dream to blest reality.

"Look at him, how he walks! Behold his modishness!" cried the Sheykh Abdul Câder, quite beside himself with exultation. "It is well seen that he has learnt Karakter thoroughly. We, too, are become more modish since thy going, O my son. By Allah Most High, we have a treat in store for thee."

The treat turned out to be a giant gramophone, installed in the best room of the grand new house, thrown open to the world that day in honor of his home-coming. It was kept going incessantly by the efforts of two barelegged helpers. Ahmed was annoyed at the sight of it, having learnt in England to despise such noisy instruments; but when he found the records were of Arab music, reproducing the chant of the best singers, male and female, and splendid versions of the Call to Prayer, he smiled at the brazen trumpet-mouth as at a friend.

"Thou hast learnt Karakter, is it not so, O my son?" inquired the Sheykh Abdul Câder, speaking loud against the music.

It

"By Allah, have I, O my father. is a matter hard to catch as is a lizard; yet I have caught it, knowing thy desire."

His boast was, in truth, no vain one. He had acquired the English Character superficially just as he had learnt by heart whole text-books in old days at school. He could assume it instead of his own, at any minute. He could even constrain himself to think like an Englishman for hours at a stretch.

"Praise be to Allah!" said the old man fervently. "To-morrow I will present thee to the notable of whom I wrote thee word that he had promised to take care of thy career-one set high in wealth and station, who sees the need of more karakter here in Egypt. It is not so simple now as it was formerly; thou wilt have to undergo examination. But that, I doubt not, will be passed with honor; no other competitor can have had thy advantages. In sh' Allah, by force of karakter, thou wilt soon rise to greatness."

"In sh' Allah!" echoed Ahmed cordially; for the prospect of an easy rise to power seemed good to him. He was not without ambition of a supple kind.

The preliminaries were soon over. His father's friend approved of his demeanor; he passed the examination easily; and soon afterwards obtained, by influence, his first appointment as secretary to an English official in the Public Works Department. The post entailed his taking rooms in Cairo, whereas he had hoped for employment within a riding distance of his father's izbah. He had married in the weeks since his return, and his father would not let his bride go up to Cairo; better one than two in the city, he declared, where food is costly; on the farm an

extra mouth made no great difference. Ahmed, however, put regrets behind him, and repaired to the office with a will to please his chief. That chief was young, not five years older than Ahmed, and his mind was set on the acquirement of Arabic, of which he knew already many vulgar and obscene expressions. Finding his English speech not well received, Ahmed was quick to divine the other's foible, and flattered it by addressing him in flowery Arabic, and praising his excellence in that tongue,

"I haven't mastered it yet, though," said the Englishman, relapsing into English, "I should be obliged if you'd help me a bit."

"Most willingly," responded Ahmed with his ready smile. It was all he wished to be of service, to win the regard of his chief, so that their work together might go forward comfortably.

The Englishman showed him copybooks and brought him exercises written in a hand like print, and Ahmed gave advice and made corrections-this in the intervals of office work, which, being a routine requiring chiefly memory, seemed easy for the Egyptian. After a little while, the pair grew intimate; the Englishman forgot his first desire to air his Arabic and conversed with his secretary freely on all kinds of topics. His character was of the simple English type, well-known to Ahmed, who had therefore no difficulty in anticipating his views and wishes. The Egyptian sometimes forgot their relative positions and talked to his chief as he had talked to Barnes and other men at Cambridge. And his chief made no objection till a certain day-the blackest of all days, a day to weep on which became the turningpoint in Ahmed's life.

They were sitting together in their room as usual, when a clerk of lower grade came in with a request about

some trifle. Seeing his chief get up and look unduly worried, Ahmed, with no other thought than to save a good friend trouble, exclaimed:

"Don't be a fool, old man! Sit down. It's nothing really."

He had been sitting back in his chair, with legs crossed nobly, in the English manner; next minute he was on his feet, his face livid, his body shaken from head to foot by shame and grief. For his friend flashed round on him, ejaculating:

"Damn your insolence! What the hell do you mean by speaking to me like that?"

The clerk of lower grade was grinning from ear to ear.

"Why, whateffer did I say?" questioned Ahmed, his voice trembling with rage.

A flood of oaths was the answer. Ahmed drew himself up.

"I haf you know, sir, I haf been to Cambridge!"

"Go to Hell!"

And when the clerk had retired, the still angry Englishman quoted, as he sat down again at his desk, a vile Arabic proverb, an invention of the Turks, to the effect that if you encourage Ali, he will presently defile your carpet. It was an offence unthinkable.

It

How he got through the rest of that day's work Ahmed never knew! was performed in anger, dimmed by acrid tears of shame. He hardly heard his chief's repeated adjurations to him not to be an ass; and answered all his orders with a simple "Yes, sir."

"There now, I'm sorry if I hurt your feelings. But you mustn't really use that tone to me, least of all in the presence of subordinates. Come, don't sulk any longer. Make it up, old man."

Ahmed heard the words and felt the hand on his houlder, but made no response. When at last he left the office he went not to his lodging, but the Nasrîyeh railway-station.

At dusk he entered the yard of his father's izbah. The people greeted him with shouts of joy. Their welcome loosed the fountain of his grief, till then restrained by pride. He ran to the threshold, and there fell down and wept and moaned convulsively. The Sheykh Abdul Câder, leaning over him, attentive to the broken words his woe flung forth, piecing them together patiently, at last obtained some notion of the matter.

"Is it of thy khawâgah that thou speakest? Did he beat thee, O my son?"

At the question Ahmed roused himself, and spoke intelligibly.

"No, O my father. Would to Allah he had done so, that I could have prosecuted him for the assault, and made his name a byword for tyranny. He cursed me, O my father; he blackened my face with foul and grievous insults; and all because I addressed him in the usual English manner as a friend. I will no longer endure such treatment, I The Cornhill Magazine.

will be a Nationalist. I was a friend of greater men than him at Cambridge. My best friend, Barnes, is the son of an English lord, whereas this dog is but the offspring of a base merchant -he himself confessed it! I will write to Barnes and have this dog degraded."

The women and the neighbors wailed in concert, without any clear conception of the call for grief. But the old man raised his hands and eyes to Heaven, crying:

"Praise be to Allah! Behold me justly punished for my proud ambition. I asked karakter for my son, and see, he has it-more than I can bear. What Son of the Nile before him ever resented the curses of one in authority? Are not our backs and the soles of our feet still sore from the Turkish whips? Yet see, my son resents this cursing which to me is nothing. He must join the malcontents, the wastrels of the land, because of it. He is become even worse than an Englishman: he is all Karakter."

Marmaduke Pickthall

Sir,-In suggesting the names of a few readable books among those recently published in France, it seems natural to begin with memoirs, a branch of literature in which the French have so often cultivated the fine flower of a peculiar art. The third volume of the Duchesse de Dino's admirable Chronique (Plon-Nourrit, 3 fr. 50 c.) continues the book down to 1850. It covers the tragic death of the Duc d'Orléans in 1842, as well as the Revolution of 1848, when alarms and disturbances pursued the Duchesse as far as the remote German principality where she reigned, spending more time This volume is even fuller of personal there than on her estates in Touraine. LIVING AGE. VOL. XLVII. 2464

interest than its forerunners, though it gives an equally vivid picture of contemporary politics and society. The most lively and detailed accounts of her journeys, her friendships, her opinions, while making us realize the social gulf between ourselves and the middle of the last century, considerably improve our acquaintance with the distinguished woman whom her grandson, the Marquis de Castellane, in his new book calls "cette surprenante Duchesse de Dino." His title, Hommes et Choses de mon Temps (Plon-Nourrit, 3 fr. 50 c.), does not precisely suggest that his mother, Madame de Castellane, is his central character: yet this is the case. Decidedly the most atractive pages in an

interesting book are those which, under the heading of "Le Salon de ma Mère," describe the political and religious influence exercised by that great-niece of Talleyrand, Madame de Dino's daughter Pauline, whose honor it is to have brought back the old statesman to Christianity. For more than a dozen years before and after 1870 Madame de Castellane's salon in Paris was the meeting-place of a distinguished Opposition, advocates of Liberalism combined with Monarchy and religion. One need only mention the name of M. Thiers -in his Royalist days-of M. de Falloux, M. de Montalembert, M. Augustin Cochin, Père Gratry, Bishop Dupanloup, to show the kind of stuff of which Madame de Castellane's friends were made. Her son writes from personal recollections, giving also his own experiences as a moblot in 1870 and in the National Assembly later. This lightly written book bears a stamp of truth and clever observation worthy of Madame de Dino's grandson.

Another book which throws light on French social history in the eventful nineteenth century is M. Clément-Simon's La Comtesse de Valon (PlonNourrit, 7 fr. 50 c.) The name of Apollonie de la Rochelambert is not familiar to English people, but until her death a few years ago Madame de Valon was a notable figure in French society. Unlike her sisters and brother, who were devoted friends of the Emperor and Empress, she was strongly Legitimist in opinion; but before all she was patriotic; and this was proved in the terrible year, when she and her husband turned their château of Rosay, in Normandy, into a military hospital. Their generous kindness to the wounded of both armies, combined with the fact that there was a friendship of long standing between her mother's family and the Prussian Royalties, caused absurd suspicions which hurt Madame de Valon deeply. Through M. Pouyer

Quertier, whose daughter became her sister-in-law, Madame de Valon was a good deal mixed up in the peace negotiations, and unpublished letters and documents add political interest to a book already full of charm. While we are talking of the war, the Marquis Costa de Beauregard's posthumous volume. Pages d'Histoire et de Guerre (PlónNourrit, 3 fr. 50 c.), with its sympathetic preface by M. Henry Bordeaux, must not be neglected. Among its varied contents, nothing is more attractive than "Pendant et Après les Coups de Feu," a thinly veiled account of the author's personal experiences as a soldier. The book is worth having, as a memorial of one of the best men and most trustworthy writers of our time.

Coming to more literary memoirs, every admirer of Alphonse Daudet must welcome Madame Daudet's Souvenirs autour d'un Groupe Littéraire (Fasquelle. 3 fr. 50 c.) Her own graceful talent is shown to perfection in this small, delightful volume of recollections, consecrated to the memory of her husband and his friends,-Flaubert, the Goncourts, and others. No one can appreciate these men more kindly than Madame Alphonse Daudet has done; no one is capable of keener, juster, more delicate criticism of some of their work and its effect on the mind of France. Another book that appeals to lovers of literature, as such, is La Dilecta de Balzac (Plon-Nourrit, 3 fr. 50 c.), a sketch by Mrs. Ruxton of the novelist's early life and his curious relation-half lover, half son-to Madame de Berny, the touching original of Madame de Mortsauf in Le Lys dans la Vallée.

French literary history, from the seventeenth century to the Revolution, is excellently illustrated by two very different books,-L'Académie Française sous l'Ancien Régime, by its late secretary, M. Gaston Boissier (Hachette, 3 fr. 50 c.) and Le Plaisant Abbé de Boisrobert, by Emile Magne (Mercure de