Adventure Magazine Cover, November 10, 1924 — page 150: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

148 considering the number of mendicants, is a very good thing. Now it was quite natural that upon the day of the coming of the new basha, the good Tetwanis should be in holiday mood, decorating their houses and shops with streamers of ribbon or paper, circula- ting about the streets and exchanging greetings and gossip, and, in short, taking advantage of a perfectly good excuse to have a holiday. Holidays mean good-nature, so it was also quite natural that every Tetwani beggar was busily circulating his begging-bowl, and that every other beggar within a day’s journey had come to share in the harvest. Dozens arrived during the night and slept outside the walls until the city gates should be opened. Not an hour of the day but saw others arrive—tall beggars and short ones, skinny and fat, beggars with two eyes, with one eye, and with no eyes at all; aged beggars and beggars who were still young; beggars led by children, or by each other, or by dogs; beggars with scarcely rags enough to cover their bodies, and beggars wrapped to the eyes in miserable garments. Lame and halt and blind, clean and diseased, many with mouths and noses and many with dirty bandages where these facial-organs should have been. Among these were a dozen who to the casual eye differed in no wise from the others. There was one difference, however—but one which would have been noted only had they been brought together and carefully inspected—-which was that the faces of all were so concealed by dirty bandages as to cause one to suspect that severe tooth- aches had become epidemic, and each one wore, upon the shoulder of his outer gar- ment, a tiny piece of red cloth, no bigger than. a silver coin. Red is the color of Islam, and Morocco is as full of sects and sub-sects as a,Moroccan dog is of fleas. And every society has its own peculiarities. NOW, about midday, the retiring basha—Sid Es-Suani by name—was alone in his official chambers, en- gaged in not unpleasant reflections upon his release from public office. Sid Es-Suani was a good man, and being not a fool could quite appreciate the fact that few good men seek public offices, and few hold them for man!”’ Adventure any great while; either they give them up—' or they cease to be good men. While he was thus occupied a slave approached him. “O Sidi, a beggar at the door insistently requests audience with your Excellency. Shall I drive him away?” “You know the rule concerning beggars,” replied Sid Es-Suani inattentively. ‘Give him a coin, and your blessing.”’ “But, O Sidi, this man desires neither a coin, nor a blessing—and he is a big “Ho! He desires not a coin. beggar then.’’ Sid Es-Suani laughed. “Or perchance he desires two coins. Try him with two coins. And two blessings,” he added dryly, as the slave turned. The black went away, but speedily came back. “He desires no coins, and no blessings, O Sidi,” he reported. ‘Furthermore, he says that he has coins and that Mulai Achmed, his father, has already laden him with ble—what said you, Sidi?”’ . The basha had jumped a little. “Let him enter, I said.” The slave, salaaming, withdrew. ‘“‘Mulai Achmed, his father, eh? Hm! Hm! A beggar who will not accept coins— Hm!” The door opened, and the slave entered, followed by a huge mendicant, arrayed in rags, head covered by the koob of his tat- tered djellaba, face half concealed by a- bandage. “Go, now,” Sid Es-Suani ordered the. slave, and turned keen eyes upon the beggar. Eyes met eyes for a breath—and the basha laughed. “Your father, Mulai Achmed, may have laden you with blessings, but Shaitan, your criginal ancestor, bequeathed to you his audacity.” “Is it audacity to visit—a friend?” asked the beggar, and his eyes smiled. “May not a beggar look at a—hm!—a basha?”’ “A retiring basha,” returned Sid Es- Suani grimly. “But still basha,’’ answered the beggar. “Still basha, and stil) able to render a ser- vice, to the son of Mulai Achmed?” “To Mulai Achmed I owe my life,” replied the dasha, and his face was serious now. “And to his son I owe, and have, friendship. If that which he desires——” CoMmicboook He is no A) CO 5}