Chapter IX

As the two students were returning through Halsted Street, they passed an Italian bank where shattered glass was lying on the pavement.

“Bank has busted,” remarked Saadi, dryly.

“It was a bomb,” explained Ameen. “The papers were full of it this morning.”

Saadi stopped and scrutinised the building. “It was not money they wanted?”

“No. Just a matter of intimidation. Such methods never accomplish anything.”

Saadi slowly resumed his former gait. “That is big question, Mirza Ameen. Just now it is fashion to say bombs do not accomplish. But nothing accomplishes. It is no use to explode or talk.”

Ameen answered gently. “Your head is hurting you, Saadi. Sometime, when it is well, I should like to discuss bombs with you.”

“Help, help!” groaned Saadi. “Baveddin belagerdan!”

Ameen laughed. “It is clear enough that you are a Bokharan. Nobody but a Bokharan would call on St. Baveddin for help. What is so terrifying in the thought of discussing bombs?”

“English, Ameen. Your beautiful English. You will not let me talk bombs in Persian, and I cannot explain in English. I was in New York five months and in Chicago one month, and I have studied English sixteen hours every day, and I could read English when I left Vienna. But I cannot explain about bombs in English.”

They reached the “Caravansery.” Ameen advanced to the third floor, and flung open the door of Jaffer’s study.

“Ahlan wa-sahlan, Saadi! You are among your family.”

Saadi gazed. “Firdousi manend—it resembles paradise, but it cannot last.”

Ameen quoted a line from Omar—whom he personally abominated, but shrewdly guessed that Saadi liked—and continued to play the host. He showed his new friend that no appointment of comfort was missing, even to the shaving mirror and the telephone. These rooms were such as an indulgent father might have fitted up for a beloved son.

“What I pay for paradise?”

“The price is supposed to be three a week, but the doctor was never known to take it. The chances are that your tuition will be refunded, if you make good.”

“My tuition shall not be refunded. I will never take Dr. Trench’s money.”

“In that case,” smiled the Persian, “it will continue to be spent on such things as Jersey cows. The doctor pays for cow after cow that he rules out of inspected herds. Come now and meet the other boys.”

“First,”—said Saadi, throwing himself back and closing his eyes—“first I would like to die here. But we may as well meet all animals.” And he sprang up.

At Ameen’s knock, the punctilious Wu looked up from behind his spectacles, came to open the door, and received his visitors with a bow. On learning that Saadi had come to stay, he immediately invited him to dinner.

“I will rather not, to-night, because my head is now so bad. But I appreciate Chinaman’s salt. In Bokhara, best salt comes from China.”

“I believe so, sir. Karshi is on our side of the mountains.”

Saadi looked critically at Wu’s intelligent countenance. “Mr. Wu does not seem like one of Chinese doctors who cure all diseases with long needle stuck in.”

“I bow,” said Wu. “And Mr. Sereef would not exorcise filaria worms by an amulet made of a gall stone from the stockyards in Halsted Street.”

“Mr. Wu, I like you. You have quick comeback. Best doctor in Bokhara is big fat cook. He cuts out filaria with knife, and then cuts mutton. But in Tashkent is man who can cure filaria with medicine he makes. I will be good to you and tell you where he is living. It is Gospitalnaya numero 400a.”

“I will call on Mr. Sereef’s medical man when I visit in Tashkent,” said Wu with infinite dryness, “and I will reciprocate by exhibiting the stockyards to Mr. Sereef.”

Somewhat brightened by these international courtesies, Saadi cast an eye about the room. There were several choice prints which Wu had brought with him. These were not of distant chapels with the rising moon, or of lonely reedbeds with flying fowl. Instead of the conventions, Wu had selected studies of little children. Saadi noted the fact.

“Will you be pediatrician in China?”

“Yes, I have chosen. What is good enough for Dr. Trench is good enough for me. I cannot hope to repeat all his successes, but repetition is the secret of success.”

“Shaitan belade! Devil knows if it is worth while to save little repeaters called babies.”

Wu smiled, while the western sun lighted his forehead and made it look like weathered ivory. “I am agnostic on that point. But in China we say, ‘Szifoo bot ok siz—even the tiger does not kill its babies’—and I will try to prevent the repetition of what I saw in Yunnan. I saw fifty girl babies dead in one field. Famine was not the cause. They were not wanted.”

Saadi merely nodded. “It is so everywhere, but in Bokhara and Chicago it is not custom to use open field. Saadi prefers plenty of kids. It does not hurt them much to die with steel-jacket bullet.”

Wu bowed. “I prefer much offspring and much peace, Mr. Sereef. I trust that your descendants will not quarrel with mine over pink salt.”

“Mr. Wu, you trust too much. You are damn fool.”

Wu bowed. “Your judgment is approximately correct.”

Saadi stared, and for the first time laughed. “Jivio! Well, Mr. Wu will be pediatrician. What is worst disease of yellow babies?”

“A certain lung trouble found only in China, Mr. Sereef. Perhaps my grandson will be the Kitazato who discovers a remedy for it.”

Saadi smiled wearily. “If Kitazato had not helped Behring, it would be no diphtheria antitoxin. Well, it has saved million boys. In one year more, Behring kids will operate Kitazato kids with bayonets. That is progress.”

Wu bowed. “We cannot turn back, Mr. Sereef. There will be no absorption of perspiration. And when I have plucked the Kwei flower at Lister, I will go back and sweat with the rest.”

He showed them out, and went downstairs to start dinner, while the visitors proceeded to Chatterjee’s room. They found him in his native clothes, into which he often slipped when the weather was warm.

“A Bengali knows nothing whatsoever about Bokhara,” he said, shyly, “but if Jaffer were here he would be aware. He lives in Peshawar. He has probably intervisited and interdined with Bokhara.”

“There are many Punjabis in Bokhara,” answered Saadi. “Some are bringing tea by Persian Gulf, and little bit comes by Kabul.”

“I am glad you like tea in Bokhara. We do not drink it in Bengal. In good sooth, however, the British drink much tea.”

“It is good enough drink for British. You hate British?”

“No. But many do.”

“I hear you when you say so, Mr. Chatterjee. But you are three hundred millions with Ehrlich’s sleeping sickness. If you would what you say swat the fly—just seventy-five thousand little flies—you would get well. But I don’t care. You are only damfool Kali-worshippers.”

“I am a Brahmo, like Dr. Trench,” said Chat quietly.

“What is Brahmo?”

“A sort of Unitarian.”

“How you know Dr. Trench is sort of Unitarian?”

“Because like Rama he is the friend of living creatures. You will find that the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man is his credo, or some such thing.”

“Well, if God is like my father, he is barbarian. Now I will go and insult other animals and then go to sleep. It is better to walk than to run, better to sleep than to wake. You know rest—?”

“Better to be dead than to sleep,” finished Chatterjee. “I hope you will rest well in Jaffer’s room. I hope too that you will breakfast with us.”

Ameen took Saadi to Deland’s room and left him there. Deland had yelled a careless “Come in,” and removed his long legs from the table.

“Proud to meet you, Sereef. Do you know this little old burg pretty well?”

“No, Mr. Deland. I have had nose in book all summer.”

“Sit down in chairs and ask me questions. Here’s the map by wards. Highest infant death-rate is in the first and seventeenth, followed by the twenty-ninth and sixteenth. Nineteenth used to be the worst, but Hull-House yanked the death-rate down. Miss Addams got herself appointed garbage inspector. What do you know about that?”

“Well, I saw Miss Addams in Hull-House, and what I know about that is if Miss Addams has garbaged she has garbaged with dignity and distinction. I wish Franz Joseph would let her clean up diplomat garbage in Vienna.”

“What I want to be is a health officer,” continued Deland. “Dr. Putnam of Boston sent me out here to be next to Isham.”

“Eyesham?”

“Yes, that’s Dr. Trench. And Dr. Trench gives me the right steer about it all the time. Funny he never went in for public medicine himself. But dear me suz!—look what he does in his own township. Internist _and_ surgeon—that’s what Isham is, and he’s got the neatest hand in Chicago, and as for a clinical eye—he’ll just look at a kid and see right through the exterior integument down into the gizzard.”

Saadi listened with gloomy admiration.

“I will come and you will give me lessons in American. What you do in summer?”

“I was counsellor in a boys’ camp. That’s the kind of thing I like—games, athletics, canoeing. And I planted a cross in our camp. Made it of birch.”

Saadi scowled. “I do not wish to hear. It is all damn foolishness.”

Deland opened his blue eyes wide. “You’ve got another guess coming. If it weren’t for religion, life wouldn’t be worth living.”

“Life is not worth living. I cannot explain to you. You are boy. I am old man.”

Deland flushed, and sat down on the table directly before his visitor.

“Say, old man, I wish you were a Christian.”

“Mr. Deland, you are damn fool. You don’t know that Christianity is damn failure. Dr. Trench could put you next.”

“Dr. Trench is a Christian,” said Deland stoutly. “He’s the kind of man I want to be.”

“Did you once ask Dr. Trench is he Christian?”

“I don’t need to ask him.”

“Well, I will ask him myself is he Christian, and I bet you one million microbes he says no.”

Saadi rose, and Deland slapped him kindly on the shoulder. “Say, old man, you’re a kidder from Kidderville. Come on now and kid Becker by your lonesome, for I’ve got to run over to the Juvenile Court building.”

Becker proved to be big and rosy cheeked. He might have passed for a Teuton, but the visitor was not deceived. As soon as they were alone, Saadi folded his arms.

“Pig of Jew,” he said, gloomily.

“Dog of a Moslem,” retorted Becker promptly.

“How old are you, Mr. Beckerovitch?”

“Twenty-five.”

“Well, it is same here. We are two old men. Where were you in 1905?”

“Moscow.”

“And where were you in 1906?”

“In prison nine months. Then a year near Archangel, with nothing to do but think about it. I got away all the same. And I brought my mother’s best pillow with me.”

“We will shake hands, Beckerovitch. But—you will please not mention mothers.” Saadi’s voice was trembling.

Becker nodded slightly, and resumed. “Were you ever locked up?”

Saadi controlled himself. “Suremike. I was guest of Nicky six months.”

“We knew in Moscow that there was fighting in Tashkent, but we did not know much about our comrades there. Well, it is all over now.”

“Yes, it is all over. Too—bad, oh, too—bad. It was no use. Nothing is of use, except maybe body. Oh, you beautiful white human body. Maybe I will what you say bust loose in Chicago.”

“That’s a rotten thing to say, my friend. That won’t go with the doctor.”

Saadi scowled. “Doctor won’t know.”

“Make no mistake about that. He will look at you some morning and you will feel like an interne who failed to wash before operating.”

“I don’t care. Always I have kept clean, and Bokhara is not clean. But revolution has failed, and always revolution will fail. I don’t care one micrococcus.”

“Well, I care. Come and have supper with me.”

“No supper for me to-night. Only nice soft pillow like Becker’s mother gave him. I wish it was pillow in dead-room. I was in hospital corps last year in Old Servia. Dead-room was only room with ventilation.”

“So! Do you think they are through their troubles for a while?”

“Shaitan belade! devil knows. Soon Austria will jump on Servia. Then Russian intelligentzia will march with mujiks.”

“Stuff and nonsense, Mr. Sereef! We socialists will never sacrifice our ideals like that.”

“Mr. Beckerovitch, you are damn fool. How began all massacres in world? With ideals, by golly. French revolution began with ideal, ended with hæmoglobin. Turk revolution began same way, ended same way. In 1908 Turk and Christian did kiss each other in streets of Stamboul, then Turks murdered thirty thousand Armenians and ten thousand Macedonians. All you socialists need is one little excuse of body—just these fool words: ‘Defence of homes.’ Spokoine noche—_good_ night!”

And having called each man a fool without disturbing any, Saadi went to Jaffer’s rooms, threw himself on Jaffer’s bed, and burst into deep sobs that no man heard.