Achmed Abdullah

“ Lastly he whispered into the pretty ear of a newcomer from Australia who was endeavoring to achieve European fame with the help of a pink Rolls-Royce that matched her string of pink pearls, and agreed with her when she said that now she understood why all her life she had felt this mysterious sympathy with the Orient, and—you bet—tea on Friday at five—he and Oktamund would be there with bells on. Would they bring the holy fakir along? Well—fakirs were shy—but they’d try their best.
“Aren’t you afraid they’ll talk to each other and give the bally show away?” asked the Rajah the next day. ”

“ Laurette and the Rajah liked each other on sight, and when a week later the two partners had worked out a plan of campaign, the Rajah was for telling her. But Canfield vetoed it.
“Not on your life!” he said. “She’s one sweet kid. But—well—she’s a woman—liable to blab. And we got to keep mum, or we spill the beans.” ”

“ For it appeared, that the Oktamund Rajahs bear a unique relation to India, being the direct descendants of Ganesha, the elephant-headed god, first born of the sons of Shiva the Creator and Doorgha the Destroyer. ”

“ Not a word to your brother-in-law—not a word to a soul until ...”
“Until you have made sure about the sword—I understand. But in the meantime let us exchange weapons,” said Mrs. Van Rensselaer. “If the prophecy is true and these are the swords, it will help. If it is only a legend, it can’t hurt.”
“Gladly,” replied the Rajah. “Perhaps,” he smiled, “you and I are indeed ...”
“Cousins?” she whispered. “Both descendants of ...”
“GANESHA, the elephant-headed god!” he completed her awed sentence, and he implanted a chaste, cousinly salute on her forehead, shortly afterward leaving with Canfield. ”

“ The princess had died in giving birth to a soil, and the Dutchman had taken the child and returned to his native land.
“But before he left,” the Rajah continued, “he swore a solemn oath that whenever a prince of Oktamund needed the help of his Dutch kinsmen, the latter must come to the rescue. And—says the prophecy—in sign of proof the two blades will meet in a foreign land and will be exchanged. Ah—” he gave a sigh which was a pure product of art—“how I wish it were not only a legend, a superstition—but a fact!”
“You are in trouble?” asked the woman. “You need help?” ”

“ But if the Rajah lacked imagination he surprised his partner when it appeared that he had a natural genuis for extracting cash from their customers in a refined and gentlemanly manner.
“Boy,” laughed Canfield when they returned from their luncheon with Miss Potts, “your god-like breed must have intermarried with the Scots or the Jews. The way you allowed Ernestine to force a check on you to help you further your investigations as to the history of her family in India—well—my hat’s off to you! ”

“ Oppler, before she became a widow—and I understand her husband was one happy guy when he knew death was near—she divorced two other men, both of them escaping with paying that alimony and begging the judge with tears in their eyes to allow them to pay more—they wanted to cinch it! The woman always pays? I never believed in that blah. If she does, why is the man always the party who’s broke? You and me aren’t broke? We’re the exceptions!”
Shortly afterwards Canfield caught a bad cold which developed into influenza. But the Rajah, visiting the sick room, told him not to worry. ”

“ She was a spinster of debatable age, faulty adenoids and romantic leanings who once had been heard to assert that she would “rather die than be of the unknown living.” She made a luncheon engagement with Canfield and murmured that she was terribly excited when he said: “Believe me—the Rajah was startled by the resemblance. What was his grandmother’s name? ”

“ You didn’t get a nickel.”
“But I have the sword.”
“A fat lot of good it’ll do you.”
“Did you look at it?”
“No.”
“I did. My dear old fruit, I know a lot about precious stones, and the hilt is a mass of uncut emeralds that are worth a pretty penny.”
“Right after dinner,” said Canfield, “I’m going to kiss you. You’re some partner. By the way, tomorrow we’re due at Mrs. Oppler’s. I dropped in on Princess Malatesta this morning and sounded her discreetly about the lady. Seems Mrs. Oppler is nuts about—what you call Hindu blah—having lived before—hundreds of times ...?” ”

“ You’ll tell the lady Friday at five, and you got to bring the fakir along and have him do a lot of hocus-pocus.” No use shaking your head. As I said, a few months from now, if we do it right we’re going to sit pretty—and by the time the ladies are ready to launch their brand new divine ancestry on the envious society of Rome, we ought to be in some other town, declaring a dividend.”
“May the blessed gods grant it!” exclaimed the Rajah with real religious fervor. “May Shiva the Creator and Doorgha the Destroyer protect me!”
“Against what?” laughed Canfield.
“Against woman! ”

“ HE GRABBED the slip of paper, went out of the room, down the stairs, jumped into a taxicab, and ten minutes later surprised Laurette with his first words:
“For a bright kid, you’re one fine little sucker.”
Laurette was busy packing her trunk. Her engagement was over. Tomorrow she was leaving Rome. She turned around; looked up. “What’s biting you?” she asked.
“Here!”—he tossed her check on the table—“throwing away money! Handing it over to dirty crooks!”
“The Rajah a crook? Why—you introduced me!”
“Well—perhaps he isn’t exactly a crook.” Canfield blushed. ”

“ How much did she slip you?”
“Three thousand guineas—” the Rajah blushed slightly as he added: “for a starter.”
“Remember, we must play them inch by inch. We got to give them enough line to keep them interested, but not enough line for them to get too darned cock-sure and spring their swell new ancestry—before we’re ready to retire from this business venture of ours. Or our goose is cooked.”
“I know. You heard me tell Miss Potts I’m really not at all sure about her grandfather and my grandmother?” ”

“ This morning those fat Brahman blighters returned to India. But before they left, being in hereditary control of Oktamund’s finances, they cut off my allowance, every penny, to force me to go home.”
"The dirty buzzards!”
"Aren’t they? So here I am, old fruit. A rajah—a god—and stony broke. And—” almost tearfully—“I’m perfectly happy in Europe. 1 don’t want to go home and be a god!”
“Say!” exclaimed Canfield with typically generous impulse. ”

“ Oppler, paling.
“It’s the man’s duty,” the Rajah reassured her chivalrously, “to supply the blood.”
Thus, very evidently and logically, it remained the woman’s duty to supply the gold. Mrs. Oppler did—with such generosity that a week or two later Canfield surprised Laurette de Roza with a handsome canary diamond in an antique setting. ”

“ Well—European titles are all very nice. But they’re getting to be as common as false teeth. Now you’re a god, aren’t you? You got a lot of pull with all the other Indian gods, you can trace your descent straight back to—”
“Old trout,” interrupted the Rajah of Oktamund, his voice throbbing with fervent admiration, “I—how do you say in America?—I ‘get’ you!”
“Good.” Canfield rose. “Business meeting tomorrow noon at my hotel. ”

“ You bet you have. All about a sword that came out of the west and another that came out of the east, and when the two meet—says this here prophecy—then it’s proof that ’steen hundred years ago, when there was a marriage between the Dutch gink who had the one sword and some flapper daughter of the god-like Rajah of Oktamund ... ”

“ I’m in love with another girl.”
“Oh, yes. Oktamund told me. Engaged to that delicious Californian dancer, aren’t you? Well—I shall give you a tip or two. Tell the Russian women they look French, the Frenchwomen they look Italian, the Italian women they look Spanish—”
“And the English and American women—?”
“Tell them ...” She interrupted herself, and turned to a tall, hook-nosed man: “How do you do? ”

“ O’Toole went to work and proved that the O’Tooles had come over in the Mayflower, direct from Cork to Salem, and old Lady Einstein raised the jackpot by proving that the Einsteins had been among the original cavalier settlers of Virginia. ”