“I take it that you are a professing Christian,” he observed.
“I am a prominent and I think I may say an influential member of the Mussulman community of Eastern Persia,” said Crosby, making an excursion himself into the realms of fiction.
The greybeard was obviously disconcerted at this new check to introductory conversation, but the defeat was only momentary.
“Persia. I should never have taken you for a Persian,” he remarked, with a somewhat aggrieved air.
“I am not,” said Crosby; “my father was an Afghan.”
“An Afghan!” said the other, smitten into bewildered silence for a moment. Then he recovered himself and renewed his attack.
“Afghanistan. Ah! We’ve had some wars with that country; now, I daresay, instead of fighting it we might have learned something from it. A very wealthy country, I believe. No real poverty there.”
He raised his voice on the word “poverty” with a suggestion of intense feeling. Crosby saw the opening and avoided it.
“It possesses, nevertheless, a number of highly talented and ingenious beggars,” he said; “if I had not spoken so disparagingly of marvellous things that have really happened I would tell you the story of Ibrahim and the eleven camel-loads of blotting-paper. Also I have forgotten exactly how it ended.”
“My own life-story is a curious one,” said the stranger, apparently stifling all desire to hear the history of Ibrahim; “I was not always as you see me now.”