oon. Pah!" And he threw himself down on a cane chair and
stretched out his dainty feet, so that the sunlight through the crack of
the half-closed door might fall comfortingly on his toes, and remind him
that it was fine outside.

"What have you been doing all day?" I asked, for lack of a better
question, not having yet recovered from the mental stagnation induced by
the last number of the serial story I had been reading.

"Oh--I don't know. Are you married?" he asked irrelevantly.

"God forbid!" I answered reverently, and with some show of feeling.

"Amen," was the answer. "As for me--I am, and my wives have been
quarreling."

"Your wives! Did I understand you to use the plural number?"

"Why, yes. I have three; that is the worst of it. If there were only
two, they might get on better. You know 'two are company and three are
none,' as your proverb has it." He said this reflectively, as if
meditating a reduction in the number.

The application of the proverb to such a case was quite new in my
recollection. As for the plurality of my friend's conjugal relations, I
remembered he was a Mohammedan, and my surprise vanished. Isaacs was
lost in meditation. Suddenly he rose to his feet, and took a cigarette
from the table.

"I wonder"--the match would not light, and he struggled a moment with
another. Then he blew a great cloud of smoke, and sat down in a
different chair--"I wonder whether a fourth would act as a fly-wheel,"
and he looked straight at me, as if asking my opinion.

I had never been in direct relations with a Mussulman of education and
position. To be asked point-blank whether I thought four wives better
than three on general principles, and quite independently of the
contemplated spouse, was a little embarrassing. He seemed perfectly
capable of marrying another before dinner for the sake of peace, and I
do not believe he would have considered it by any means a bad move.

"Diamond cut diamond," I said. "You too have proverbs, and one of them
is that a man is better sitting than standing; better lying than
sitting; better dead than lying down. Now I should apply that same
proverb to marriage. A man is, by a similar successive reasoning, better
with no wife at all than with three."

His subtle mind caught the flaw instantly. "To be without a wife at all
would be about as conducive to happiness as to be dead. Negative
happiness, very negative."

"Negative happiness is better than positive discomfort."