As the long, black scow of the commissariat went crawling up the torpid river with the advance-guard straggling along upon the right, "we" lay upon the deck under the shadow of the scow’s awning and talked and drank seltzer. I forget now what led up to it, but Ponscarme had said that the Arabs were patriotic, when Bab Azzoun cut in and said something which I shall repeat as soon as I have told you about Bab Azzoun himself. Bab Azzoun had been born twenty-nine years before this time, at Tlemcen, of Kabyle parents (his father was a sheik). He had been transplanted to France at the age of ten, and had flourished there in a truly remarkable manner. He had graduated fifth from the Polytéchnique; he had written books that had been "_couronné par l’Académie_"; he had become naturalised; he had been prominent in politics (no one can cut a wide swath in Paris in anything without hitting against _la politique_;) he had occupied important positions in two embassies; he was a diplomat of no mean qualities; he had influence; he dressed in faultless French fashion; he had owned "Crusader"; he had lost money on him; he had applied to the government for the office of "_Sous-chef-des bureaux-Arabes dans l’Oran_," in order to recoup; he had obtained it; he had come on with "us", and was now on this, his first visit to his fatherland since his tenth year, on his way to his post. And when Ponscarme had spoken thus about the patriotism of the Arabs, Bab Azzoun made him answer: "The Arabs are not sufficiently educated to be true patriots." "Bah!" said Santander, "a man does not require to be educated in order to be a patriot. And, indeed, the rudest nations have ever been the most devotedly patriotic." "Yes," said Bab Azzoun, "but it is a narrow and a very selfish patriotism." "I can’t see that," put in Ponscarme; "a patriot is like an egg—he is either good or bad. There is no such thing as a ’good enough egg,’ there is no such thing as a ’good enough patriot’—if a man is one at all, he is a perfect one."