“The Prince Pasha bids me to dinner at the Palace to-night. I have no clothes for such affairs. Yet—” His mind was asking itself if this was a door opening, which he had no right to shut with his own hand. There was no reason why he should not go; therefore there might be a reason why he should go. It might be, it no doubt was, in the way of facilitating his business. He dismissed the orderly with an affirmative and ceremonial message to Prince Kaid—and a piece of gold.
“You’ve learned the custom of the place,” said Lacey, as he saw the gold piece glitter in the brown palm of the orderly.
“I suppose the man’s only pay is in such service,” rejoined David. “It is a land of backsheesh. The fault is not with the people; it is with the rulers. I am not sorry to share my goods with the poor.”
“You’ll have a big going concern here in no time,” observed Lacey. “Now, if I had those millions I left in Mexico—” Suddenly he stopped. “Is it you that’s trying to settle up an estate here—at Assiout—belonged to an uncle?”
David inclined his head.
“They say that you and Prince Kaid are doing the thing yourselves, and that the pashas and judges and all the high-mogul sharks of the Medjidie think that the end of the world has come. Is that so?”
“It is so, if not completely so. There are the poor men and humble—the pashas and judges and the others of the Medjidie, as thee said, are not poor. But such as the orderly yonder—” He paused meditatively.
Lacey looked at David with profound respect. “You make the poorest your partners, your friends. I see, I see. Jerusalem, that’s masterly! I admire you. It’s a new way in this country.” Then, after a moment: “It’ll do—by golly, it’ll do! Not a bit more costly, and you do some good with it. Yes—it—will—do.”
“I have given no man money save in charity and for proper service done openly,” said David, a little severely.
“Say—of course. And that’s just what isn’t done here. Everything goes to him who hath, and from him who hath not is taken away even that which he hath. One does the work and another gets paid—that’s the way here. But you, Mr. Claridge, you clinch with the strong man at the top, and, down below, you’ve got as your partners the poor man, whose name is Legion. If you get a fall out of the man at the top, you’re solid with the Legion. And if the man at the top gets up again and salaams and strokes your hand, and says, ‘Be my brother,’ then it’s a full Nile, and the fig-tree putteth forth its tender branches, and the date-palm flourisheth, and at the village pond the thanksgiving turkey gobbles and is glad. ‘Selah’!”