and although his master often plagued
him, he nevertheless cared for him well, and brought him up and
provided him with all manner of good things. Thus Dirham, whenever his
master's name was mentioned, bethought him how little he was worth
when Mukhtar Bey bought him, and how many more dirhams he was worth
now, and for all this he could not thank Mukhtar enough.

Ali Pasha for a long time watched from the bastions this man planting
his tulips. Some of them he pressed down into the ground very
carefully, strewing them with loose powdery earth, preparing a proper
place for the bulbs beforehand, and moistening them gently with watery
spray; others he plumped down into the earth anyhow, covering them up
very perfunctorily, and never looking to see whether he watered them
too much or too little.

Ali carefully noted those bulbs which Dirham had bestowed the greatest
pains upon, and then went down and entered into conversation with him.

"What are the names of these tulips?"

Dirham ticked them all off: King George, Trafalgar, Admiral
Gruithuysen, Belle Alliance, etc., etc. But at the same time he
skipped over one or two here and there, and these were the very ones
which he had covered up with the greatest care.

"Then thou dost not know the names of those others?" inquired Ali.

"I have lost my memoranda, my lord, and I cannot remember all the
names among so many."

"Look, now, I know the names of these flowers. This is Sulaiman, that
over there is Mukhtar Bey."

Dirham cast himself on his face before the pasha. Ali had guessed
well. Dirham remembered the two gentlemen just as a good dog remembers
his master--they were ever in his mind.

The wretched man fully expected that Ali would immediately tear these
bulbs out of the ground and plant his own head there in their place.

Instead of that Ali graciously raised him from the ground and said to
him in a tender, sympathetic voice, "Fear not, Dirham! Thou hast no
need to be ashamed of such noble sentiments. Thou art thinking of my
sons. And dost thou suppose that I never think of them? I have
forbidden every one in the fortress to even mention their names; but
what does that avail me if I cannot prevent myself from thinking of
them? What avails it to never hear their names if I see their faces
constantly before me? The world says they have betrayed me; but I do
not believe, I cannot believe it. What says Dirham? Is it possible
that children can betray their own fath