Najib

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George H. Doran Company, 1925 - English fiction - 311 pages
 

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Page 229 - I'm sorry I laughed at you, Najib," returned Kirby, with due penitence, " I don't wonder you got such an idea, from the headline. You see, I have read the story that goes under it. That's how I happen to know what it means. It means that several thousand workmen of several allied trades threatened to go on strike. That will tie up a lot of business, you see ; along a lot of lines. It will mean a general tie-up — a " From Najib's blank face, the American saw his more or less technical explanation...
Page 242 - ... as might a dog that had just performed some pretty new trick, or a child who has brought to its father a gift. But the aspect of Kirby's distorted face there in the dying firelight shocked the Syrian into a grunt of terror. Scrambling to his feet, he sputtered quaveringly. "Tame yourself, howadji, I enseech you! Why are you not rejoiceful? Will it not mean much money for you; and " " You mangy brown rat ! " shouted Kirby in fury. " What in blazes have you done ? You know, as well as I do, that...
Page 238 - I've been here all evening, while you've stayed below there, trying to increase those fellaheens' stock of ignorance. What's the idea?" " Oh, I prythee you, do not let my awayness beget your goat, howadji ! " pleaded Najib, ever sensitive to any hint of reproof from his master. " It was that which made the grand tidings. If I had not of been where I have been this evening — and doing what I have done — there would not be any tidings at all. I made the tidings myself. Both of them. And I made...
Page 250 - I borrowed me of you in the night, howadji," pursued Najib, taking from the soiled folds of his abieh a large old volume, bound in stout leather, after the manner of religious or scientific books of a half-century ago. On the brown back a scratched gold lettering proclaimed the gruesome title: " Martyrs of Ancient and Modern Error." Well did Kirby know the tome. Hundreds of times, as a child, had he sat on the stone floor of his father's cell-like mission study at Nablous, and had pored in shuddering...
Page 246 - ... than half what you are getting now. Your lookout isn't cheery, my striking friend ! " He made as though to go into his tent. After a brief pause of horror, Najib pattered hurriedly and beseechingly in his wake. " Howadji ! " pleaded the Syrian shakily. " Howadji! You would not, in the untamefulness of your mad, desertion us like that ? Not me, at anyhow ? Not me, who have loved you as Daoud the Emir loved Jonathan of old ! You would not forsook me, to starve myself ! Ate! Ohe!
Page 240 - It is not to be said in the Arabic, howadji," returned Najib, wincing at this slur on his English. " For there is not such a thing in the Arabic as to make strike. We make strike. Thus I say it we " stroke ourselves." If it is the wrong way for saying it " " Strike ? " repeated Kirby, perplexed. " What do you mean? Are you still thinking about what I told you to-day? If you are going " " I have bethought of it, howadji, ever since,
Page 246 - ... which the Cabell Smelting Company's home office would decipher. He peered up at Kirby with disconsolate astonishment. Quick to take advantage of the change, the manager hurried on : " Now, the men are on strike. That's understood. Well, what are you and they going to do about it ? When the draft for the monthly pay roll comes to the bank, at Jerusalem, as usual, I shall refuse to indorse it. I give you my oath on that, too. I am not going to distribute the company's cash among a bunch of strikers....
Page 241 - ... payment shall be two mejidie for every mejidie we have been capturing from his company. Also and likewise that we shall work but half time. And that you, howadji, are to receive even as we; save only that your wage is to be enswollen to three times over than what it is now. And say to him, howadji, that unless he does our wish in this striking we shall slay all others whom he may behire in our place and that we shall dynamitely destroy that nice mine. Remind him, howadji — if perchancely he...
Page 249 - Saeed! Sa-EED!" In the distance, dying away, he heard the plodding hoofs of a string of pack mules. From the direction of the mine came the hoodlum racket which betokens, in Syria, the efforts of a number of honest labourers to perform their daily tasks in an efficient and orderly way. Kirby, in sleepy amaze, looked at his watch in the dim dawn light. He saw it was still a full half hour before the men were due to begin work. And by the sounds he judged that the day's labour was evidently well under...
Page 253 - Instead of the bonus, howadji," ventured Najib, scared at his own audacity, yet seeking to take full advantage of this moment of expansiveness, "could I have this pleasing book as a baksheesh gift?" "Take it!" vouchsafed Kirby. "The thing gives me bad dreams. Take it!" "May the houris make soft your bed in the Paradise of the Prophet!" jabbered Najib, in a frenzy of gratitude, as he hugged the treasured gift to his breast. "And — and, howadji, there be more pictures I did not show. They will be...

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