... The fat vendor turned about on himself, among the trays of maamoul and qatayef and baklava, and his "drooping cheeks" quivered as he made a show of briskness — straightening a chair here, wiping a table there, or shaking out a napkin — and asked in a loud voice:

— Half a dozen of what, sonny?

With the movement of a well-mannered schoolboy I stepped back a pace, raised my eyes to the sign above the entrance of the shop, and read what was written on it in fiery red: "Znoud el-Sett every morning" — and I answered the man:

— Half a dozen "znoud el-sett," please!

— All gone today, sonny... all gone.

Truth to tell, I had not expected that answer. It struck at a longing in me for something that never stopped calling out inside me. And after a while I found myself dragging my feet slowly along, lulling my disappointment with logic: no doubt I had come too late... Then I board the tram to school.

•

I sometimes lack the moral courage to speak out about things dear to my heart, and at times the names that stand close together in my affections get tangled on my tongue.. Had I not glanced at the sign, I could not have been sure that other names would not rush to my mouth, jostling one another:

knafeh with cheese, for instance, knafeh with kashta, ballouriyeh, osmalliyeh, halawa with cheese, and... knafeh upon knafeh and kashta upon kashta... and I don't know what else!. All of them rich, luscious, luscious words that make the mouth water!

As a child of three, ten years ago, I was in Tripoli, the place of my birth. And among the sweetest memories of that dewy time — memories that often come back to me now in my sleep — were our strolls on "the Tell" on Sunday afternoons, my father and I. Now

I would walk pressed close against him, holding his finger; more often he would carry me on his arm, and I never left off wearing him out with question after question in the lisp of a chattering child, until, weary of my pestering and my prying, he would turn aside with me into one of the shops in that neighborhood, crowded with marble tables around which were ranged chairs all alike in color and shape.

My eyes would at once alight on a roomy side corner filled with brass trays with pierced rims, laden with everything fine and delicious. And no sooner had I settled on his knee, beaming and gleeful, than a knight in a white jacket would stand before us and pour us two glasses of cold water... Here my father would ask me, with a nod of his head and a wink of his eye: what did I want? And in the flood of my perplexity among the longed-for dainties

I would decide at last: —