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At these brutal, downright words, leaving the poor young thing nothing to say, no little pretence even to herself that she had guarded the proprieties, had comported herself circumspectly, leaving her with not even a little rag of a claim that she had conducted herself with seemly decorum, she sprang from him and began to cry. Whatever the cause, Mr. Middleton could not look upon feminine unhappiness with composure and here where he was himself responsible, he was indeed smitten with keen remorse and hastening to comfort her, gathered her into his arms and there he was abasing and condemning himself and telling her what a dear, nice girl she was–and kissing away her tears.

“Let me give you a piece of advice,” he said, fifteen minutes later, as he was about to release her and depart. “It is not best ever to let a man hug you. Never,” he said, pausing to imprint a lingering kiss upon the girl’s yielding lips, “never let a man kiss you again until that moment when you shall become his affianced wife.”

Mr. Middleton departed in that serene state of mind which the consciousness of virtue bestows, for he had given the young woman valuable advice that would doubtless be of advantage to her in the future and he reflected upon this in much satisfaction as he fared away with the eyes of the young woman watching him from where she looked out of the parlor window.

Reaching into his right coat pocket to transfer the copper bottle to the opposite pocket, in order that his coat might not be pulled out of shape, as he grasped the neck, one of his fingers went right into the mouth! The seal of Solomon was gone! A less resolute and quick-witted person might have been alarmed, but reasoning that the seal must have been knocked off during the fight at Mr. Smitz’s and nothing had happened since, he boldly examined the bottle. He could see a white substance as he looked into it, and by the aid of a stick he fished out a wad of wool tightly stuffed in the neck. A metallic chinking followed the removal of the wadding and set his heart thumping rapidly. He looked up and down the street. No one in sight. He tilted the bottle up to the light of a street lamp and saw a yellow gleam. He shook it and into his hands flowed a stream of gold sequins! He could not sufficiently admire the ruse of Prince Houssein. Money on the first messenger there had been none.

In a center more given to numismatics, or had he been willing to wait and sell the coins gradually, Mr. Middleton might have secured more than he did for the gold pieces, all coined at Bagdad in the early caliphates and very valuable. But he disposed of them in a lump to a French gentleman on La Salle Street for fourteen hundred and twenty-five dollars.

Calling on the young lady of Englewood within the next few days, he made no reference to these events, though she asked him several times during the evening what he had been doing lately. He did, however, hint at having profited by a certain fortunate “deal,” as he called it, but not a word did he say concerning the mournful girl or anything remotely connected with her.

Hesitating to hurt the emir’s feelings by exposing the obtuseness of his ancestor Noureddin and the foolish superstition of his descendants ever since, Mr. Middleton said nothing of these transactions when once more he sat in the presence of the urbane and accomplished prince of the tribe of Al-Yam. Having handed him a bowl of delicately flavored sherbet, the emir began the narration of The Pleasant Adventures of Dr. McDill.