“You shall be paid,” he shouted, “you shall be paid!”

“Anger is useless, my friend.”

And as Gregorio left the house Amos smiled and stroked his beard.  “Truly,” he thought, “these Christians hate us, but we have them in our power.  It is pleasant to be hated and yet to know that it is to us they must cringe when they are in need; and it is very pleasant to refuse.  My friend Gregorio is not happy now that he is struggling in my grasp.”

As for Gregorio, he wandered away toward the harbour, kicking savagely at the refuse scattered along the pavement.  He did not know how to set about earning the requisite sum.  It was no good applying to the hotels or tourist agencies, for there were few visitors in the city and dragomen were therefore not needed.

His friends were too poor to help him, and the consul was unable to do much for him, there were so many poor Greeks who wanted help.  Meanwhile there was no food at home and no drink; even the necessaries of life were lacking.

On arriving at his home he found his wife and child huddled in a corner crying for food.  They ran toward him as he entered, but the hope in their faces quickly faded at the sight of him.

“It’s no good,” Gregorio growled; “Amos refuses to advance a piastre and says I must pay all I owe in three days.”

“It is impossible to sleep when one is hungry,” said Gregorio that night to his wife, who lay awake, weeping, beside him.

III—­OF FAILURE AND A RESOLVE

Gregorio’s dreams, when he did sleep, were none of the pleasantest, and when he woke up, from time to time, he heard his wife weeping.  In wondering what he should say to comfort her he fell asleep again, and sleeping was worse than lying awake.  For in his dreams he saw Xantippe and his child starving and crying for food, and he was unable to help them in any way.  He lived over again the long day he had spent tramping the streets of Alexandria searching for work.  He saw the few tourists still left in the town fat and happy; he saw the porters of the hotels who had smiled on him pityingly and yet contemptuously; and he woke, after each representation of the crude comedy, hot and yet cold with perspiration, to feel the bed on which he lay shaking under the sobs of his wife.

When at last day dawned Gregorio raised himself with an oath, and swore to find food for his family and work for himself.  The terrible debt he owed to Amos he swore should not trouble him, laughing at his wife’s remonstrances.  With the bright daylight had come a new courage, and, hungry as he was, he felt able not only to satisfy their hunger, but so skilfully to arrange matters that they would never feel hungry again.  Yet is was a terrible ordeal, that half-hour when the family should have sat down to a table laden with food.  The poor wife cried, and he had to comfort her tears with promises, unsubstantial