In spite of Jean-Jacques and his school, men are not everywhere,especially in countries where excessive liberty or excessive tiffinfavors the growth of that class of adventurers most usually designatedas drummers, or by a still more potent servility, the ruthlesspredatory instinct of certain bold and unscrupulous persons may andalmost certainly will; and in those more numerous and certainly more[4]happy countries where the travelling show is discouraged, theunwearying flatterer, patient under abstemious high-feeding, willassuredly become a roving sleight-of-hand man.
Without doubt the Eastern portion of the world, when an hereditary,or, at least, a traditional, if not customary, or, perhaps,conservative, not to say legendary, or, more correctly speaking,historic, despotism has never ceased to ingrain the blood of Russia,Chinese, Ottoman, Persia, India, British, or Nantasket, in a perfectinstance of a ruthless military tiffin, where neither blood norstratagem have been spared.[1]
[1] The editor was here obliged to omit a score of pages, inwhich the only thing worth preserving was a carcanet of sulphursprings.
I was at tiffin. A man sat opposite whose servant brought him waterin a large goblet cut from a single emerald. I observed him closely. Awater-drinker is always a phenomenon to me; but a water-drinker whodid the thing so artistically, and could swallow the fluid withoutwincing, was such a manifestation as I had never seen.
I contrasted him with our neighbors at the lunch-counter, who seemedto be vying, like the captives of Circe, to ascertain by trial whocould swallow the most free lunch, and pay for the fewest"pegs,"—those vile concoctions of spirits, ice, and soda-water, whichhave destroyed so many splendid resolutions on the part of the[6]Temperance Alliance,—and an impression came over me that he must bethe most innocent man on the road.
Before I go farther let me try and describe him. His peculiarity wasthat, instead of eyes, he had jewels composed of six precious stones.There was a depth of life and vital light in them that told of thepent-up force of a hundred, or, at least, of ninety-nine generationsof Persian magi. They blazed with the splendor of a god-like nature,needing neither tiffin nor brandy and soda to feed their power.
My mind was made up. I addressed him in Gaelic. To my surprise, andsomewhat to my confusion, he answered in two words of modern Hebrew.[7]We fell into a polyglot but refined conversation.
"Come and smoke," he said, at length.
Slipping into the office of the hotel, and ascertaining that there wasno danger, I followed to his room.
"I am known as Mr. Jacobs," he said. "My lawful name is AbdallahHafiz-ben-butler-Jacobi."
The apartment, I soon saw, was small,—for India at least,—and everyavailable space, nook, and cranny, were filled with innumerableshow-cases of Attleboro' jewelry.
"Pretty showy?" he remarked familiarly. "I am a drummer."
"My name is Peter Briggs," I replied. "I am a correspondent of the