than a portion of bizri fish bought for five piasters and one orphan scrap of bread — so much so that Najm al-Maghribi, the owner of the eating-house, had nicknamed Hamdoun “the five-piaster cus-tomer.” But how was Hamdoun to get the better of his rival now? He must be strong — strong, yes! Life, as he saw it, belongs to the strong! He must be strong!

The next day Hamdoun went out to his work as though he had become two Hamdouns, and the first thing he did was to fall upon Saber unawares, throw him to the ground, and rain blows upon him, while their fellows looked on agape, so stunned by the event that it nailed them where they stood. Hamdoun never knew where that strength had come from, nor how it was granted him to rub Saber's nose in the dust; but he grasped one thing funda-mental to his life, and it warmed his heart: from that moment he had imposed his authority upon the company — an authority that grew every time he threw one of them to the ground, or every time he bent his brows in anger.

Hamdoun's income grew, until he turned up his nose at al-Maghribi's eating-house and made for the falafel shop with the two wide doors, where he took to paying twenty-five piasters for a loaf stuffed with a mixture of falafel, tomato, radish, and parsley, all swimming in a pool of tahini! Before long he was one of the shop's steady and respected patrons: he would no longer consent to eat standing, but took to sitting at a table, and the waiter would bring him the stuffed loaf and a bottle of iced water; and when he had finished eating he would toss down thirty-five piasters before the owner of the shop and go his way. Nor did he always go in alone. Often he would bring along one of his fellows and buy him a loaf; and often he would come out of the shop with a stuffed loaf in his hand, walk up to Saber, and hold it out to him, saying:

— Saber, take it. Eat.

But Hamdoun's fists — though they were the best argument for persuading his fellows to keep clear of his stand — could not

persuade the customers of the soundness of that logic. Many turned away from our friend when they saw that roughness in him, and inclined with their bundles away from him toward someone else; and he would choke down his rage with an effort and wait for another chance to take his due from the competition. One day he fell upon one of these rivals, striking him and striking him, in a kind of trance of hatred. He was roused from his stupor by a jolt that shook his very marrow; he looked up, and there he stood before a municipal policeman who was trying to bring his truncheon down on his head a second time. At that Hamdoun sprang at the policeman, the spittle running down his chin, and sank his nails into his face, then fell to tearing at his hands and his feet and his clothes with a mad speed — as though he were

rending not merely the policeman before him, but injustice, and life, and everyone who set himself between him and his right to an honorable living.

*

And on one of the evenings of Ramadan, when the heat scorched men's bodies and the sweat streamed down their backs like insects creeping, vexing and tick-ling, the fasters had risen to break the fast. And there was Hamdoun — the term in the reformatory having eaten away at his face and his body, his hands and his feet, his heart and his eyes — rising heavily from his stand and making his way to al-Maghribi's eating-house, where he tossed five piasters in coin down before its owner, and stared long into his face without uttering a word.

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