easons of me, assuring you that they are
perhaps not entirely unconnected with the welfare of this gentleman. I
observed from your manner toward one another that you were
acquaintances and that it was no chance conversation between
strangers. He is, I take it, an Italian."

Without pausing to reflect that the emir might not be at all pleased
to have this young woman know of his identity, Mr. Middleton exclaimed
hastily and with a gesture of expostulation:

"Oh, no! He is not a Dago," and then after a pause he remarked
impressively, "He is an Arab," and then after a still longer pause, he
said still more impressively, "He is the Emir Achmed Ben Daoud,
hereditary prince of the tribe of Al-Yam, which ranges on the borders
of that fertile and smiling region of Arabia known as Yemen, or Arabia
the Happy."

"He is not a Dago!" said the young woman, clasping her hands with
delighted fervor.

"He is not a Dago!" said another voice, and Mr. Middleton became aware
that at his back stood a second young woman scarcely less charming
than the first. "He is not a Dago!" she repeated, scarcely less
delighted than the first.

Mr. Middleton arose and assumed an attitude which was at once
indicative of proper deference toward his fair questioners and enabled
him the better to feast his entranced eyes upon them. Moreover, on all
sides he observed that people were looking at them and he needed no
one to tell him that his conversation with these two daughters of the
aristocracy was causing the assemblage to regard him as an individual
of social importance. He gave the emir's address upon Clark Street and
after dwelling some time upon his graces of person and mind, related
how it was that this Eastern potentate was resident in the city of
Chicago in a comparatively humble capacity.

"His brother is shut up in a vermillion tower."

"Vermillion, did you say?" breathlessly asked the first young lady.

"Oh, how romantic!" exclaimed the second young lady. "A tower of
vermillion! Is he good looking, like this one? Do you suppose he will
come here? Oh, Mildred, I must meet him. And the imam of Oman is going
to give the vermillion tower to the brother, when he is released. We
could send one of papa's whalebacks after it. What a lovely house on
Prairie Avenue it would make. 'The Towers,' we would call it. No,
'Vermillion Towers.' How lovely it would sound on a card, 'Wednesdays,
Vermillion Towers.' We must get him out. Can't we do it?"

"I