eady if Tufik came to the
apartment; I shall say nothing of our success in getting him employment
in the foreign department of a bank, and his ending up by washing its
windows; or of the position Tish got him as elevator boy in her
hospital, where he jammed the car in some way and held up four surgeons
and three nurses and a patient on his way to the operating-room--until
the patient changed his mind and refused to be operated on.

Aggie had a brilliant idea about the census--that he could make the
census reports in the Syrian district. To this end she worked for some
time, coaching Tufik for the examination, only to have him fail--fail
absolutely and without hope. He was staying in the Syrian quarter at
that time, on account of Hannah; and he brought us various tempting
offers now and then--a fruit stand that could be bought for a hundred
dollars; a restaurant for fifty; a tailor's shop for twenty-five. But,
as he knew nothing of fruits or restaurants or tailoring, we refused to
invest. Tish said that we had been a good while getting to it, but that
we were being businesslike at last. We gave the boy nine dollars a week
and not a penny more; and we refused to buy any more of his silly linens
and crocheted laces. We were quite firm with him.

And now I come to the arriving of Tufik's little sister--not that she
was really little. But that comes later.

Tufik had decided at last on what he would be in our so great America.
Once or twice, when he was tired or discouraged, Tish had taken him out
in her machine, and he had been thrilled--really thrilled. He did not
seem able to learn how to crank it--Tish's car is hard to crank--but he
learned how to light the lamps and to spot a policeman two blocks away.
Several times, when we were going into the country, Tish took him
because it gave her a sense of security to have a man along.

Having come from a country where the general travel is by camel,
however, he had not the first idea of machinery. He thought Tish made
the engine go by pressing on the clutch with her foot, like a sewing
machine, and he regarded her strength with awe. And once, when we were
filling a tire from an air bottle and the tube burst and struck him, he
declared there was a demon in the air bottle and said a prayer in the
middle of the road. About that time Tish learned of a school for
chauffeurs, and the three of us decided to divide the expense and send
him.

"In three months," Tish explained, "we