The Carpet From Bagdad | Page 3

was no fool. That one year taught him the lesson,
rather cheaply, too. If there was any romance in life, it came uninvited,
and if courted and sought was as quick on the wing as that erstwhile
poesy muse.
The year passed, and while he had not wholly given up the quest, the
practical George agreed with the romantic Percival to shelve it
indefinitely. He returned to New York with thirty-pounds sterling out
of the original thousand, a fact that rejuvenated his paternal parent by
some ten years.
"Jane, that boy is all right, Percival Algernon could not kill a boy like
that."
"Do you mean to infer that it ever could?" Sometimes a qualm wrinkled
her conscience. Her mother's heart told her that her son ought not to be
shy and bashful, that it was not in the nature of his blood to suspect
ridicule where there was none. Perhaps she had handicapped him with
those names; but it was too late now to admit of this, and useless, since
it would not have remedied the evil.

Jones hemmed and hawed for a space. "No," he answered; "but I was
afraid he might try to live up to it; and no Percival Algernon who lived
up to it could put his nose down to a Shah Abbas and tell how many
knots it had to the square inch. I'll start him in on the job to-morrow."
Whereupon the mother sat back dreamily. Now, where was the girl
worthy her boy? Monumental question, besetting every mother, from
Eve down, Eve, whose trials in this direction must have been
heartrending!
George left the cellar in due time, and after that he went up the ladder
in bounds, on his own merit, mind you, for his father never stirred a
hand to boost him. He took the interest in rugs that turns a buyer into a
collector; it became a fascinating pleasure rather than a business. He
became invaluable to the house, and acquired some fame as a judge and
an appraiser. When the chief-buyer retired George was given the
position, with an itinerary that carried him half way round the planet
once a year, to Greece, Turkey, Persia, Arabia, and India, the lands of
the genii and the bottles, of arabesques, of temples and tombs, of
many-colored turbans and flowing robes and distracting tongues. He
walked always in a kind of mental enchantment.
The suave and elusive Oriental, with his sharp practices, found his
match in this pleasant young man, who knew the history of the very
wools and cottons and silks woven in a rug or carpet So George
prospered, became known in strange places, by strange peoples; and
saw romance, light of foot and eager of eye, pass and repass; learned
that romance did not essentially mean falling in love or rescuing
maidens from burning houses and wrecks; that, on the contrary, true
romance was kaleidoscopic, having more brilliant facets than a
diamond; and that the man who begins with nothing and ends with
something is more wonderful than any excursion recounted by Sinbad
or any tale by Scheherazade. But he still hoped that the iridescent
goddess would some day touch his shoulder and lead him into that
maze of romance so peculiar to his own fancy.
And then into this little world of business and pleasure came death and
death again, leaving him alone and with a twisted heart. Riches

mattered little, and the sounding title of vice-president still less. It was
with a distinct shock that he realized the mother and the father had been
with him so long that he had forgotten to make other friends. From one
thing to another he turned in hope to soothe the smart, to heal the
wound; and after a time he drifted, as all shy, intelligent and
imaginative men drift who are friendless, into the silent and intimate
comradeship of inanimate things, such as jewels, ivories, old metals,
rare woods and ancient embroideries, and perhaps more comforting
than all these, good books.
The proper tale of how the aforesaid iridescent goddess jostled (for it
scarce may be said that she led) him into a romance lacking neither
comedy nor tragedy, now begins with a trifling bit of retrospection.
One of those women who were not good and who looked into the clear
pool of the boy's mind saw the harmless longing there, and made note,
hoping to find profit by her knowledge when the pertinent day arrived.
She was a woman so pleasing, so handsome, so adroit, that many a man,
older and wiser than George, found her mesh too strong for him. Her
plan matured, suddenly and brilliantly, as projects of men and women
of her class and caliber without variation do.
Late one December afternoon (to be precise, 1909),