Newspaper Page Text
|»raMM«
W >3®g» M®W& ?,'V ’
'' K’ n »
w®r '"*, ® i ^'_«,*« 1
tw '/
«® Mbi , »wz®
a--- '■^■^
1^ ’" irm 1 hwoT----^' —
MjJ i . i7
I ^X® Wl I
! rW mtt
1 IB
rsh SI ®ll k v i\
Mull I Mi\
®JM
/Ov^^
\\VA\WB=® : # JSu
|||||| |ffp
"Well, I’ve Got a Rug Up In My Room I’d Like to Show You."
SYNOPSIS.
George Percival Algernon Jones, vice
president of the Metropolitan Oriental Rug
company of New York, thirsting for ro
mance, is in Cairo on a business trip.
Horace Ryanne arrives at. the hotel in
Cairo with a carefully guarded bundle.
i CHAPTER lll.—(Continued.)
' George's romance gathered Itself for
a flight. Perhaps it was love thwart
ed and the gentleman with the mus
tache and imperial, in spite of his ami
ability, might be the ogre. Perhaps
it was love and duty. Perhaps her
lover had gone down to sea. Perhaps
Jfpr lovers fre known to do such
things^ tie had run away with the
other girl. If that was the case,
George did not think highly of that
tentative gentleman’s taste. Perhaps
and perhaps again; but George might
have gone on perhapsing till the
crack o’ doom, with never a solitary
glimmer of the true state of the girl's
mind. Whenever he saw an unknown
man or woman who attracted his at
tention, he never could resist the im
pulfje to invent a romance that might
apply.
7 Immediately after dessert the two
rose; and George, finding that nothing
more important than a pineapple Ice
detained him, got up and followed. Mr.
Ryanne almost trod on his heels as
they went through the doorway into
the cosy lounging-room. George
drbpped into a vacant divan and wait
ed for his case a la Turque. Mr.
Ryanne walked over to the head-por
ter’s bureau and asked if that gentle
man would be so kind as to point out
Mr. George P. A. Jones, if he were
anywhere in sight. He thoughtfully,
not to say regretfully, laid down a
small bribe.
‘‘Mr. Jones?” The porter knew Mr.
Jones very well. He was generous,
and treated the servants as though
they were really human beings. Mr.
Ryanne, either by his inquiry or as
the result of his bribe, went up sev
, eral degrees in the porter’s estima
tion. "Mr. Jones is over there, on the
divan by the door.”
“Thanks.”
But Ryanne did not then seek the
young man. He studied the quarry
from a diplomatic distance. No; there
was nothing to indicate that George
Percival Algernon Jones was in any
way handicapped by his Arthuresque
middle names.
“No fool, as Gioconda In her Infinite
wisdom hath said; but romantic, ter
ribly romantic, yet, like the timid
bather who puts a foot Into the water,
finds It cold, and withdraws It. It will
all depend upon whether he is a real
collector or merely a buyer of rugs.
Forward, then, Horace; a sovereign
has already dashed headlong down the
far horizon." The curse of speaking
his thoughts aloud did not lie heavily
upon him tonight, for these cogitations
were made In silence, unmarked by
any facial expression. He proceeded
across the room and sat down beside
George. “I beg your pardon,” he be
gan, "but are you not Mr. Jones?”
Mildly astonished, George signified
that he was.
“George P. A. Jones?”
George nodded again, but with some
heat in his cheeks. “Yes. What is
it?" The girl had just finished her
coffee and was going away. Hang this
fellow! What did he want at this mo
ment?
If Ryanne saw that he was too
much, as the French say, he also per
ceived the cause. The desire to shake
George till his teeth rattled w T as in
stantly overcome. She /hadn’t seen
him, and for this he was grateful.
“You are interested in rugs? I mean
old_ ones, rare ones, rugs that are
bought once and seldom If ever sold
again.”
“Why, yes. That’s my business.”
George had no silly ideas about trade.
He had never posed as a gentleman’s
son in the sense that it meant idle
ness.
Ryanne presented his card.
"How do you pronounce it?” asked
George naively.
"As they do in Cork.”
“I never saw it spelled that way be
fore.”
“Nothing surprising in that,” replied
Ryanne. "No one else has, either.”
George laughed and waited for the
explanation.
“You see, Ryan is as good a name
as they make them; but it classes
with prize-fighters, politicians and bar
chemists. The two extra letters put
the finishing touch to the name. A
jewel is all right, but what tells is
the way you hang it round your neck.
To me, those additional letters repre
sent the jewel Ryan in the hands of a
Lalique.”
“You talk like an American.”
“I am; three generations. What’s
the matter?” with sudden concern.
George was frowning. “Haven’t I
met you somewhere before ?”
“Not to my recollection.” A specu
lative frown now marred Ryanne’s
forehead. It did not illustrate a search
in his memory for such a casualty as
the meeting of George. He never for
got a face and certainly did not re
member George’s. Rather, the frown
had its source in the mild dread that
Percival Algernon had seen him some
tvhere during one of those indisposi
tions of the morning after. “No; I
think you have made a mistake."
"Likely enough. It just struck me
that you looked something like a chap
named Wadsworth, who was half-back
on the varsity, when I entered my
freshman year.”
“A university man? Lord, no! I
was turned loose at ten; been hustling
ever since.” Ryanne spoke easily, not
a tremor in his voice, although he
had received a slight mental jolt.
“No; no college record here. But I
want to chat with you about rugs.
I’ve heard of you, indirectly."
“From the carpet fellows? We do
a big business over here. What have
you got?”
"Well, I’ve a rug up In my room
I’d like to show you. I want your judg
ment for one thing. Will you do me
the favor?”
Since the girl had disappeared and
with her those imaginary appurte
nances that had for a space trans
formed the lounging-room into a stage,
George saw again with normal vision
that the room was simply a common
meeting-ground for well-dressed per
sons and ill-dressed persons, of the
unimpeachable, the impeccable, the
doubtful and the peccant; for in Cairo,
as in ancient Egypt, there is every
class and kind of humans, for whom
the Decalogue was written, tran
scribed, and shattered by the turbu-
lent Moses, an incident more or less
forgotten these days. From the tail
of his eye he gave swift scrutiny to
his chance acquaintance, and he found
nothing to warrant suspicion. It was
not an unusual procedure for men to
hunt him up in Cairo, In Constantinople,
in Smyrna, or in any of the Oriental
cities where his business itinerary led
him. The house of Mortimer & Jones
was widely known. This man Ryanne
might have been anywhere between
thirty and forty. He was tall, well set
up, blond and smooth-skinned. True,
he appeared to have been 111-fed re
cently. A little more flesh under the
cheek-bones, a touch of color, and the
Irishman would have been a handsome
man. George could read a rug a league
off, as they say, but he was a child in
the matter of physiognomy, whereas
Ryanne was a past-master in this re
gard; it was necessary both for his
business and safety.
“Certainly, I’ll take a look at it.
But I tell you frankly,” went on
George, “that to interest me it’s got
to be a very old one. You see, it’s a
little fad of mine, outside the business
end of it. I’m crazy over real rugs,
and I know something about every
rare one in existence, or khown to ex
ist. Is it a copy?”
“No. I’ll tell you more about it
when we get to my room.”
“Come on, then.” George was now
quite willing to discuss rugs and car
pets.
Having gained ihe room, Ryanne
threw off his coat and relighted his
cigar, which, in a saving mood, he had
allowed to go out. He motioned George
to be seated.
“Just a little yarn before I show you
the rug. See these cuffs?”
“Yes.”
“You will observe that I have had
to reverse them. Note this collar?
Same thing. Trousers-hems a bit
frayed, coat shiny at the elbows.”
Ryanne exhibited his sole fortune.
“Four sovereigns between me and a
jail.”
George became thoughtful. He was
generous and kind-hearted among
those he knew intimately or slightly,
but he had the instinctive reserve of
the seasoned traveler in cases like
this. He waited.
“The truth is, I’m all but done for.
And if I fail to strike a bargain here
with you. . . . Well, I should hate
to tell you the result. Our consul
would have to furnish me passage
home. Were you ever up against it to
the extent of reversing your cuffs and
turning your collars? You don't know
what life is, then.”
George gravely produced two good
cigars and offered one to his host.
There was an absence of sound,
broken presently by the cheerful
crackle of matches; two billowing
clouds of smoke floated outward and
upward. Ryanne sighed. Here was a
cigar one could not purchase in all the
length and breadth of the Orient, a
Pedro Murias. In one of his doubt
fully prosperous epochs he had smoked
them daily. How long ago had that
been?
"Yonder is a rug, a prayer-rug, as
holy to the Moslem as the Idol’s eye
is to the Hindu, as the Bible is to the
Christian. For hundreds of years it
never saw the outside of the Sultan’s
palace. One day the late, the recently
late, Abdul the Unspeakable Turk,
gave it to the Pasha of Bagdad.
Whenever this rug makes its appear
ance in Holy Mecca, it is worshiped,
and none but a Sultan or a Sultan’s
favorite may kneel upon it. Bagdad,
the hundred mosques, the old capital'
of Suleiman the Great, the dreary
Tigris and the sluggish Euphrates, a
muezzin from the turret calls to pray
er, and all that; eh?”
George leaned forward from his
chair, a gentle terror in his heart.
“The Yhiordes? By Jove! is that the
Yhiordes?”
Admiration kindled in Ryanne’s
eyes. To have hit the bull’s-eye with
so free and quick an aim was ample
proof that Percival Algernon had not
boasted when he said that he knew
something about rugs.
"You’ve guessed it.”
“How did you come by it?” George
demanded excitedly.
"Why do you ask that?”
“Man, ten-thousand pounds could
not purchase that rug, that bit of car
pet. Collectors from every port have
been after it in vain. Apd you mean
to tell me that It lies there, wrapped
in butcher’s paper?"
"Right-O!”
Ryanne solemnly detached a cuff
and rolled up his sleeve. The bare
muscular arm was scarred by two
long, ugly knife-wounds, scarcely
healed. Next he drew up a trousers
leg, disclosing a battered shin. "And
there’s another on my shoulder-blade,
the closest call I ever had. A man
who takes his life in his hands, as I
have done, merits some reward. Mr.
Jones, I’ll be frank with you. lam a
kind of derelict. Since I was a boy, I
have hated the humdrum of officea
> of shops. I wanted to be my own man,
to go and come as I pleased. To do
this and live meant precarious ex
ploits. This rug represents one of
them. I am telling you the family
secret; I am showing you the skele
, ton in the closet, confidentially. I
stole that rug; and when I say that
the seven labors of our old friend
Hercules were simple diversions com
pared, you’ll recognize the difficulties
I had to overcome. You know some
thing of the Oriental mind. I hand
led the job alone. I may not be out
of the jungle yet.”
George listened entranced. He-could
readily construct the scenes through
which this adventurer had gone; the
watchful nights, the untiring patience,
the thirst, the hunger, the heat. And
yet, he could hardly believe. He was
a trifle skeptical. Many a rogue had
made the mistake of playing George's
age against his experience. He had
made some serious blunders in the
early stages of the business, how
ever; and everybody, to gain some
thing in the end, must lose something
at the start.
“If that rug is the one I have in
mind, you certainly have stolen it.
And if it’s a copy, I'll tell you quickly
enough.”
"That’s fair. And that’s why,”
Ryanne declared, “I wanted you to
look at it. To me, considering what I
have gone through to get it, to me it
is the genuine carpet. To your expert
eye it may be only a fine copy. I know
this much, that rare rugs and paint
ings have many copies, and that some
one is being hooked, sold, bamboozled,
sandbagged, every day in the week. If
this is the real article, I want you to
take it off my hands,” the adventurer
finished pleasantly. \
“There will be a hue and cry.”
“No doubt of it.”
“And the devil’s own job to get It
out of Egypt.” These were set phrases
of the expert, preliminaries to bar
gaining. “One might as well carry
round a stolen elephant.”
“But a man who is as familiar with
the game as you are would have little
difficulty. Your integrity is an estab
lished fact, on both sides of the water.
You could take it to New York as a
copy, and no appraiser would know
the difference. It’s worth the attempt.
I’d take it to New York myself, but
you see, lam flat broke. Come; what
do you or I care about a son-of-a-gun
of a Turk?” drolly.
“What do you want for it, suppos
ing it's genuine?” George’s throat was
dry. and his voice harsh. His con
science roused herself, feebly, for it
had been a long time since occasion
had necessitated her presence.
Ryanne narrowed his eyes, carefully
balancing the possibilities. "Say, one
thousand pounds. It is like giving it
away. But when the devil drives, you
know. It is beyond any set price; it
is worth what any collector is willing
to pay for it. I believe I know the
kind of man you are, Mr. Jones, and
that is why, when I learned you were
in Cairo, I came directly to you. You
would never sell this rug. No. You
would become like a miser over his
gold. You would keep it with your
emeralds (I have heard about them,
too); draw the curtains, lock the
doors, whenever you looked at it. Eh?
You would love it for its own sake,
and not because it is worth so many
thousand pounds. You are sailing in
a few days; that will help. The Pasha
is in Constantinople, and it will be
three or four weeks before he hears of
the theft, or the cost,” with a certain
• grimness.
"You haven’t killed any one?” whis
pered George.
“I don’t know; perhaps. Christian
ity against paganism; the Occidental
conscience permits it.” Ryanne made
a gesture to indicate that he would
submit to whatever moral arraignment
Mr. Jones deemed advisable to make.
But George made none. He rose
hastily, sought his knife and, without
so much as by your leave, slashed the
twine, flung aside the paper, and threw
the rug across the counterpane. It
■was the Yhiordes. There was not the
slightest doubt in his mind. He had
heard it described, he had seen a
photograph of it, he knew its history
and, most vital of all, he owned a
good copy of it.
Against temptation that was robust
and energetic and alluring (like the
man who insists upon your having a
drink when you want it and ought not
to have it), what chance had con
science, grown innocuous in the long
period of the young man’s good be
havior? Collectors are always honest
before and after that moment arrives
when they want something desperate
ly; and George was no more saintly
than his kind. And how deep Ryanne
and his confederates had delved into
human nature, how well they could
read and judge it, ■was made manifest
in this moment of George’s moral re
lapse.
Bagdad, the jinns, Sinbad, the Thou
sand and One Nights, Alibaba and the
Forty Thieves; George was transport
ed mentally to that magic city, stand
ing between the Tigris and the' Eu
phrates, in all its white glory of a
thousand years gone. Ryanne, the
room and its furnishings, all had van
ished, all save the exquisite fabric pat
i terned out of wool and cotton and
knotted with that mingling love and
> skill and patience the world knows no
. more. He let his hand stray over it
How many knees had pressed its thick
r yet pliant substance? How many
strange scenes had it mutely wit
nessed, scenes of beauty, of terror? It
shone under the light like the hide of
a healthy hound.
The nerves of a smoker are general
ly made ‘ apparent by the rapidity of
his exhalations. These two, in the
several minutes, had filled the room
with a thick, blue haze; and through
this the elder man eyed the younger.
The sign of the wolf gleamed In his
eyes, but without animosity, modified
as it was by the half-friendly, half
cynical smile.
"I’ll risk it,” said George finally,
lining stepped off the magical carpet,
as it were. "I can’t give you a thou
sand pounds tonight. I can give you
three hundred, and the balance tomor
row, between ten and eleven, at
Cook’s.”
“That will be agreeable to me.”
George passed over all the available
cash he had, rolled up the treasure and
tucked it under his arm. That some
where in the world was a true be
liever, wailing and beating his breast
and calling down from Allah curses
upon the giaour, the dog of an infidel,
who had done this thing, disturbed i
George not in the least. :
"I say,” as he opened the door, "you ■
must tell me all about the adventure.
It must have been a thriller.”
“It was,” replied Ryanne. "The
story will keep. Later, if you care to i
hear it.”
“Os course,” added George, moved :
by a discretionary thought, “this trans- :
action is just between you and me.” :
"You may lay odds on that,” heart- j
ily. "Well, good night. See you at :
Cook’s in the morning.”
Mi
A
mtbAl
IMdW/ - / /F w
KM? im iSWi
ISA
B wBwH
It Was the Yhlordes.
"Good night.” George passed down
the corridor to the adjoining room.
And now, bang! goes Pandora’s box.
CHAPTER IV.
An Old Acquaintance.
That faculty which decides on the
lawlessness of our actions; so the
noted etymologist described con
science. It fell to another distin
guished intellect to add that con
science makes cowards of us all. Ay.
She may be overcome at times, side
tracked for any special desire that de
mands a clear way; but she's after us,
fast enough, with that battered red
lantern of hers, which, brought down
from all tongues crisply Into our own,
reads —"Don’t do it!” She herself is
not wholly without cunning. She rare
ly stands boldly upon the track to flag
us as we come. She realizes that she
might be permanently ditched. No; it
is far safer to run after us and catch
us. A dlsgression, perhaps, but more
pertinently an application.
Temptation then no longer at his
shoulder, George began to have
qualms, little dhaps, who started bus
zing into his moral ears with all that
maddening, Interminable drone which
makes one marvel however do school
teachers survive their first terms.
Among these qualms there was none
that pleaded for the desolate Turk or
his minions whose carelessness had
made the theft possible. For all George
cared, the Moslem might grind his
forehead in the soulless sand and
make the air palpitate with his plaints
to Allah. No. The disturbance was
due to the fact that never before had
he been wittingly the purchaser of
stolen goods. He never tried to gloze
over the subtle distinction between
knowing and suspecting; and if he had
been variously suspicious in regard to
certain past bargains, conscience had
found no sizeable wedge for her de
murrers. The Yhiordes was confessed
ly stolen.
He paused, with his hand upon the
door-knob of his room. If he didn’t
keep the rug, it would fall into the
hands of a collector less scrupulous.
To return it to the Pasha at Bagdad
would be pure folly, and thankless. It
was one of the most beautiful weav
ings in existence. It was as priceless
in its way as any Raphael in the Vati
can. And he desired its possession in
tensely. Why not? Insidious phrase!
Was it not better that the world
should see and learn what a wonderful
craft the making of a rare rug had
been, than to allow it to return to the
sordid chamber of a harem, to inevit
able ruin? As Ryanne said, what the
deuce was a fanatical Turk or Arab
to him?
Against these specious arguments in
favor of becoming the adventurer’s
abettor and accomplice, there was
first the possible stain of blood. The
man agreed that he had come away
from Bagdad in doubt. George did
not like the thought of blood. Still,
he had collected a hundred emeralds,
not one of which was without its red
record. Again, if he carried the rug
home with his other purchases, he
could pull it through the customs only
by lying, which was as distasteful to
his mind as being a receiver of stolen
goods.
He had already paid a goodly sum
against the purchase; and it was not
likely that a man who was down to
reversing his collars and cuffs would
take back the rug and refund the
money. The Yhlordes was his, hap
pen what might. So conscience snuffed
out her red lantern and retired.
(TO BE CONTINUED.)
Happens Sometimes.
"Get off and let’s go to the ball
game.”
"1 got off the other day. Can’t re
peat so soon.”
"Then we’ll go to the theater to
night.”
“Can’t ao that either. The office
r-lays a double-header and we work to
night. \