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young man there showed me a cheese, which he told me also had no name, but which was native to the town, and in the valley of Ste. Engrace, where is that great wood which shuts off all the world, they make their cheese of ewe's milk and sell it in Tardets, which is their only livelihood. They make a cheese in Port-Salut which is a very subtle cheese, and there is a cheese of Limburg, and I know not how many others, or rather I know them, but you have had enough: for a little cheese goes a long way. No man is a glutton on cheese.
What other cheese has great holes in it like Gruyere, or what other is as round as a cannon-ball like that cheese called Dutch? which reminds me:--
Talking of Dutch cheese. Do you not notice how the intimate mind of Europe is reflected in cheese? For in the centre of Europe, and where Europe is most active, I mean in Britain and in Gaul and in Northern Italy, and in the valley of the Rhine--nay, to some extent in Spain (in her Pyrenean valleys at least)--there flourishes a vast burgeoning of cheese, infinite in variety, one in goodness. But as Europe fades away under the African wound which Spain suffered or the Eastern barbarism of the Elbe, what happens to cheese? It becomes very flat and similar. You can quote six cheeses perhaps which the public power of Christendom has founded outside the limits of its ancient Empire--but not more than six. I will quote you 253 between the Ebro and the Grampians, between Brindisi and the Irish Channel.
I do not write vainly. It is a profound thing.

The Captain of Industry
The heir of the merchant Mahmoud had not disappointed that great financier while he still lived, and when he died he had the satisfaction of seeing the young man, now twenty-five years of age, successfully conducting his numerous affairs, and increasing (fabulous as this may seem) the millions with which his uncle entrusted him.
Shortly after Mahmoud's death the prosperity of the firm had already given rise to a new proverb, and men said: "Do you think I am Mahmoud's-Nephew?" when they were asked to lend money or in some other way to jeopardize a few coppers in the service of God or their neighbour.
It was also a current expression, "He's rich as Mahmoud's-Nephew," when comrades would jest against some young fellow who was flusher than usual, and could afford a quart or even a gallon of wine for the company; while again the discontented and the oppressed would mutter between their teeth: "Heaven will take vengeance at last upon these Mahmoud's-Nephews!" In a word, "Mahmoud's-Nephew" came to mean throughout the whole Caliphate and wherever the True Believers spread their empire, an exceedingly wealthy man. But Mahmoud himself having been dead ten years and his heir the fortunate head of the establishment being now well over thirty years of age, there happened a very inexplicable and outrageous accident: he died--and after his death no instructions were discovered as to what should be done with this enormous capital, no will could be found, and it happened moreover to be a moment of great financial delicacy when the manager of each department in the business needed all the credit he could get.
In such a quandary the Chief Organizer and confidential friend, Ahmed, upon whom the business already largely depended, and who was so circumstanced that he could draw almost at will upon the balances, imagined a most intelligent way of escaping from the difficulties that would arise when the death of the principal was known.
He caused a quantity of hay, of straw, of dust and of other worthless materials to be stuffed into a figure of canvas; this he wrapped round with the usual clothes that Mahmoud's-Nephew had worn in the office, he shrouded the face with the hood which his chief had commonly worn during life, and having so dressed the lay figure and secretly buried the real body, he admitted upon the morning after the death those who first had business with his master.
He met them at the door with smiles and bows, saying: "You know, gentlemen, that like most really successful men, my chief is as silent as his decisions are rapid; he will listen to what you have to say, and it will be a plain yes or no at the end of it."
These gentlemen came with a proposal to sell to the firm for the sum of one million dinars a barren rock in the Indian Sea, which was not even theirs, and on which indeed not one of them had ever set eyes. Their claim to advance so original a proposal was that to their certain knowledge two thousand of the