"'Young man,' he says, glowering at me, 'I don't know what your game is, but I'll tell you right here you can't play it on me. Never heard of _Mister_-John-Stirling-of-New-York in my life. So you can put your money back.' I wasn't going to be whipped by the old shell-fish, and then I didn't like the way he spoke of Jack. I knew he was the right man, for Jack doesn't make mistakes--not about things like that. So I went at him on another tack. "'Weren't you up at Philæ two years ago in a dahabieh?' "'Yes.' "'And didn't you meet four or five young Americans who came up on the steamer, and who got into a scrape over their fare?' "'I might--I can't recollect everybody I meet--don't want to--half of 'em--' All this time I was standing, remember. "'And didn't you--' I was going on to say, but he jumped from his chair and was fumbling about a bookcase. "'Ah, here it is!' he cried out. 'Here's a book of photographs of a whole raft of young fellows I met up the Nile on that trip. Most of 'em owed me something and still do. Pick out the man now you say owes me fifteen shillings and wants to pay it.' "'There he is--one of those three.' "The old fellow adjusted his glasses. "'The Rajah! That man! Know him? Best lad I ever met in my life. I'm damned if I take his money, and you can go home and tell him so.' He did, though, and I sat with him until three o'clock in the morning talking about Jack, and I had all I could do getting away from him then. Wanted me to move in next day bag and baggage, and stay a month with him. He wasn't so bad when I came to know him, if he was red and claw-y." I again devoted my thoughts to the dinner--what I could spare from the remarkable personage Marny had been discussing, and who still sat within a few tables of us. My friend's story had opened up a new view of life, one that I had never expected to see personified in any one man. The old-fashioned rules by which I had been brought up--the rules of "An eye for an eye," and "Earn thy bread by the sweat of thy brow," etc.--seemed to have lost their meaning. The Rajah's method, it seemed to me, if persisted in, might help solve the new problem of the day--"the joy of living"--always a colossal joke with me. I determined to know something more of this lazy apostle in a dress suit who dispensed sweetness and light at some other fellow's expense. "Why do you call him 'The Rajah,' Marny?" I asked. "Oh, he got that in India. A lot of people like that old lobster in Cairo don't know him by any other name." "What did he do in India?" "Nothing in particular--just kept on being himself--just as he does everywhere." "Tell me about it."