l sort of
business, mingling so much with stupid tourists. Bah! And such small
gains! By the time you have divided with the soldiers little is left. So
I gave it up."

"The next came from that queer place," says Lindy, "Port--Port----"

"Port Said," helps out Pasha, "where I had a gambling house. That was
good for a time. Rather lively also. We had too much shooting and
stabbing, though. It was an English officer, that last one. What a row!
In the night I left for Tunisia."

"Oh, yes, Tunis," says Lindy. "Something about slaves there, wasn't it?"

"Camels also," says Pasha. "I traded in both stolen camels and smuggled
slaves."

He throws this off as casual as if he was tellin' about sellin' sewin'
machines. I glances over to see how Sadie's takin' it, and finds her
drawin' in a long breath.

"Well, I never!" says she explosive. "What a shameless wretch! And you
dared confess all this to Lindy?"

"Pardon, Madam," says he, smilin' until he shows most of his white
teeth, "but I desired no misunderstanding. It is my way with women, to
tell them only what is true. If they dislike that--well, there are many
others."

"Humph!" says Sadie, tossin' her head. "Lindy, do you hear that?"

Lindy nods and keeps right on bastin' the sleeve.

"But how did you ever come to marry such a person, Lindy?" Sadie
demands.

Carlos executes another smile at this and bows polite. "It was my
fault," says he. "I was in England, waiting for a little affair that
happened in Barcelona to blow over. By chance I saw her in her father's
shop. Ah, you may find it difficult to believe now, Madam, but she was
quite charming,--cheeks flushed like dawn on the desert, eyes like the
sea, and limbs as lithe as an Arab maiden's! I talked. She listened. My
English was poor; but it is not always words that win. These British
girls, though! They cannot fully understand romance. It was she who
insisted on marriage. I cared not a green fig. What to me was the
mumbling of a churchman, I who cared not for the priests of my mother
nor the rabbi of my father? Pah! Two weeks later I gave her some money
and left her. Once more in the mountains of Spain I could breathe
again--and I made the first English we caught settle the whole bill.
That is how it came to be, Madam. Ask her."

Sadie looks at Lindy, who nods. "Father drove me out when I went back,"
says she; "so I came over here. Carlos had told me where to write. You
got all my letters, did you, Carlos?"