BY ALBERT PAYSON TERHUNE
From The Popular Magazine
"Furthermore, howadji," ventured Najib, who had not spoken for fully half an hour, but
had been poring over a sheaf of shipment items scribbled in Arabic, "furthermore, I am
yearnful to know who was the unhappy person the wicked general threatened. Or, of a
perhaps, it was that poor general himself who was bethreatened by his padishah or by the-
-"
"What on earth are you babbling about, Najib?" absent-mindedly asked Logan Kirby, as
he looked up from a month-old New York paper which had arrived by muleteer that day
and which the expatriated American had been reading with pathetic interest.
Now, roused from his perusal by Najib's query, Logan saw that the little Syrian has
ceased wrestling with the shipment items and was peering over his employer's shoulder,
his beady eyes fixed in keen curiosity on the printed page.
"I enseeched you to tell me, howadji," said Najib, "who has been threatening that poor
general. Or, perchancely, who has been made to cower himself undertheneath of that
fierce general's threatenings. See, it is there, howadji. There, in the black line at the left
top end of the news. See?"
Following the guidance of Najib's stubby, unwashed finger, Kirby read the indicated
headline:
GENERAL STRIKE THREATENED
"Oh!" he answered, choking back a grin, "I see. There isn't any 'general,' Najib. And he
isn't threatened. It means--"
"May the faces of all liars be blackened!" cried Najib in virtuous indignation. "And may
the maker of the becurst newspage lie be doubly afflictioned! May his camels die and his
wives cast dust upon his bared head! For he has befooled me, by what he has here
enprinted. My heart went out with a sweet sorrowfulness for that poor general or for the
folk he bethreatened. Whichever it might chance itself to be. And now the news person
has made a jest of the truth. But he--"
Kirby's attempt at self-control went to pieces. He guffawed. Najib eyed him sourly; then
said in icy reproof:
"It is known to all, howadji, that Sidi-ben-Hassan, the sheikh, was the wisest of men. And
did not Sidi-ben-Hassan make known, in his book, that 'Laughter is for women and for
hyenas'? Furthermore--"
