spent as an honored guest... of a certain prison. As for Najib, he was the only one against whom
the evidence of the charge could not be established, and he came out of the melee acquitted... his skirts spotless.
*
Raouf lifted his eyes from the brass plate and turned suddenly at the sound of the motor of an elegant automobile coming to a stop; its door opened, and out of it stepped... Najib...
How strange coincidences are! It was he himself, his very figure — save for that coating of grandeur that clothed his face...
He advanced toward the door of the house, fixed the standing stranger with a look of pride, and said: — What are you doing here, man?
Raouf smiled coldly and said: — Good heavens... don't you know me, Najib?
Najib's eyes bulged and he cried out, disbelieving his own eyes: ...Who? Raouf? I see you here... I... I mean, when did you leave your prison? — Today.
Najib took hold of himself and said with resolve — Very well, and what do you want? — I ask your help.
— You ask my help? Ha ha... Listen, Raouf: I suppose you have been able to guess that I have become a man of position, and I suppose you will agree with me that it is not in my interest to couple my name with yours now. It is better for you to keep out of my way... Do you hear? And now, take this.
He put his hand into his pocket, took out a silver coin, and tossed it into the air; it came to rest at the feet of Raouf, who kept shifting his gaze between it
and Najib's face, and then said, while the two forces of rage and resentment pulled at him:
— Keep it in your pocket, you scoundrel... I have no need of your generosity!
Raouf shook his head sorrowfully... and went on... But where was he to go? He had hoped for Najib's help; and now that this base man had dashed his hopes, no way remained before him but to turn to a cousin of his, and shelter under his roof for a few days until life should settle for him somehow.
He knocked at the cousin's door — would that he had not! — for the answer came harsher in its blow than the stab of knives:
— My roof shelters no criminals... Go back where you came from.
And he went on... knocking at doors in search of work... the same question and the same
answer every time... Is there any post, sir?
The men in charge would look him over with searching eyes, and their eyes fell on nothing but an appearance whose shabbiness held nothing to inspire confidence... and the lips of each of them would part over a single word that cut the frail thread of hope from his soul: "Sorry"...
His feet grew weary with the seeking and his tongue dry with the asking...
And he began to go hungry — and hunger is an infidel — and he began to lose his taste for this freedom that had so long caressed him in his dreams.
Was this the world that the prison chaplain had painted for him — a tender mother blessing whoever comes to her repentant and
