“He does not waste his breath in tub-thumping,” said one, looking reverently at the sealed figure.
“No,” another would reply, “they may ridicule our old-fashioned, honest, quiet Mohammedan country gentlemen, but for common sense I will back them against all the brilliant paradoxical young fellows of our day.”
“They say he is very kind at heart and lovable,” a third would then add, upon which a fourth would bear his testimony thus:
“Yes, and though he says nothing about it, his charitable gifts are enormous.”
By the second meeting of the council the lay figure had achieved a reputation of so high a sort that the Caliph himself insisted upon making him a domestic adviser, one of the three who perpetually associated with the Commander of the Faithful and directed his policy. For the universal esteem in which the new councillor was held had affected that Prince very deeply.
Here there arose a crux from which there could be no escape, as one of the three chief councillors, Mahmoud’s-Nephew, must speak at last and deliver judgments!
The Manager, first considering the whole business, and next adding up his private gains, which he had carefully laid out in estates of which the firm and its employés knew nothing, decided that he could afford to retire. What might happen to the general business after his withdrawal would not be his concern.
He first gave out, therefore, that the millionaire was taken exceedingly ill, and that his life was despaired of: later, within a few hours, that he was dead.
So far from attempting to allay the panic which ensued, Ahmed frankly admitted the worst.
With cries of despair and a confident appeal to the justice of Heaven against such intrigues, the honest fellow permitted the whole of the vast business to be wound up in favour of newcomers, who had not forgotten to reward him, and soothing as best he could the ruined crowds of small investors who thronged round him for help and advice, he retired under an assumed name to his highly profitable estates, which were situated in the most distant provinces of the known world.