o see a Dervish sitting on the floor,
as if he had all the time in the world. He didn't seem in the least
afraid of Haroun al Raschid; for Dervishes are great people in their way
and have no need of being afraid of anybody.

[Illustration: _One was beating the other_]

"Good-evening, Mr. Dervish, may I sit down by you and have a little talk
about dervishry?"

[Illustration: _A little talk about dervishry_]

The Dervish said something she didn't quite understand about not talking
shop on social occasions. "However," he added, "I will be glad to tell
about my neighbors; that will be more polite." This suited Miss Muffet
just as well.

"It's what I really want to hear about," she said. "Dervishry must be
very hard work when you do it well, but it gives you a chance to meet
all the interesting people. Let me see; you have a bowl, and you sit
under a palm-tree by a well, and then the Calendars and Cadis and Muftis
and Merchants and Mendicants and the ladies of Bagdad come and ask you
questions, and when they put things in your bowl you answer them?"

The Dervish said that that would be against the rule.

"Oh, I remember. You look wise and tell them to come again to-morrow.
The next day they come again, and you tell them which camel was blind in
one eye and where their lovers are. That is very wonderful."

The Dervish said that was the easiest part of it. The hardest thing was
to look wiser than the Muftis.

[Illustration: _An expressive glance at the executioner_]

Very soon they were having a delightful talk about all the great
personages Miss Muffet had always admired at a distance, but the Dervish
had known them intimately and could tell all their weak points, which
were not in the books. Indeed, Miss Muffet was surprised to find how
many mistakes the books had in them, all because the persons who made
them hadn't taken the trouble to talk with the Dervish. Almost all the
numbers were wrong.

"There weren't forty thieves, there were only thirty-nine. I counted
them myself."

"But didn't everything else happen as I was told?" asked Miss Muffet;
"and didn't it come out as it is in the book?"

The Dervish admitted this, but said that that wasn't the important part:
the important part was to count straight.

A remarkable discovery was that all the famous people had brothers, and
the brothers were always the ones who ought to have been famous, but
every one forgot about them.

"There is Aladdin, he's a great