Louise Closser Hale

“ It was out of our way, but Cassy feared if we didn't go there shortly there would be no room left in the motor for rugs. "You shouldn't buy rugs in Kairouan," we reminded her. "It is a holy city. If a Moslem makes seven pilgrimages there it is the equivalent to one to Mecca, and he will see Paradise."
"He will see it if he goes but once to Kairouan," murmured Professor George, parenthetically, although he was seeing nothing at the time but the mist of Cassy's hair.
The young lady was insistent that rugs could be found in the city of mosques. ”

“ And it is a melancholy fact that any girl who has looked about her a bit will admit such an arrangement to be an asset in life. However, we had forgotten the advantages of this specious pulchritude, or rather we had ceased to regard it as being marketable, and when we fully realized that Gregory would be thrown into close proximity with Cassy if he accepted our invitation, we saw very little ahead but several hundred miles of motoring misery for both our guests. ”

“ He did not at first accept our proposal, although we drove him straight away to the café at Sidi Bou Said, and he who can sit under the spell of that Moorish village and refuse any cup that is offered him of further Arabian delights has reduced life to a science indeed. Yet he admitted the temptation to let the world slide, and as he and the Illustrator touched upon their boyhood days and their climb up the beanstalk to manhood, they found that the science of life as the biologist knew it, and the science of living as the Illustrator had found it, were not dissimilar. ”

“ A mile from the fort another curious tribe had scorned an earthworm existence, and had built rooms of clay one above the other which were reached by rough outside steps. They were poor beyond description, yet with camels in the market-place and trafficking in the shops. Cassy hurled herself upon the inhabitants and demanded anklets.
Professor George, speaking Arabic, aided her in the search. And yet, did Professor George do that? We have only his word for it. But he is a good man, and Cassy is now happy—let us doubt not. Only—there were no Roman anklets to be found ”

“ The Arabian women, dressed and veiled in black—for economy's sake, the guide told us—squatted along the route; and sweeping past us came the meharis, the courier camels, their white-clad drivers urging the huge beasts to greater speed as they took their "warming" up previous to a race of many miles. ”

“ A Street in the old Quarter of Sousse The Illustrator and I pinched each other, which is as much show of affection as those who have seen their wooden-wedding dare permit themselves, and both of us felt pity for the biologist, because his love must live—and die—in so appealing an hour. But it didn't die, not in that hour, although when the President appeared Cassy clapped her hands against her mouth, emitting what the Arabian women call applause, but we call a war-whoop ”

“ A more adept man in the business could have delayed a proposal of marriage for months of exquisite uncertainty, but we were sure that the end was near, and looked forward gloomily to hours of silent motoring to the troglodytes and back. What the Illustrator called the "acid test" was applied to the Professor's love in Kairouan, and he stood it, and this was what carried us into the second conviction.
The Mosque in the Narrow Street—Tunis The mosques, we will acknowledge, made some impression on Cassy. ”

“ We expressed the development only by the rolling of eyes at first, for the Professor would not permit me the back seat, would not permit me Cassy at all, and gave every indication that it was his plan to win her by the well-applied forces of his intelligence.
"She still buys curios—awful ones," I confided to the Illustrator at Sfax, forgetting the while to drive away the Arabs who gathered about the sketching one.
"I've great faith in the intellect," he replied. ”

“ Did you ever have your head shaved, Mr. George? Those little lawn-mowers that move over it are so funny. Look, here comes a funeral! It's so sweet the way the French take off their hats. They—"
"As I was saying, Greg!" broke in the Illustrator, firmly, "if you've never been to Matmata, you ought to come with us. They're a very curious people. They—they—" He didn't know what they did, and looked at me appealingly.
"They live in the ground," I hastened, glad I had read up on them.
"Oh yes," said Gregory, "they are troglodytes. They—"
But Cassy drowned him in a flood of laughter. ”