Tish says our vulgar lip-osculation is unknown in the Orient and that they rub noses by way of greeting.  I think, however, that she is mistaken in this and that the Australians are the nose-rubbers.  I recall a returned missionary’s telling this, but I cannot remember just where he had been stationed.

Things were very quiet for a couple of weeks.  Tufik came round only once—­to tell us that, having to pay car fare to get to the automobile school, his nine dollars were not enough.  We added a dollar a week under protest; and Tish suggested with some asperity that as he was only busy four hours a day he might find some light employment for the balance of the day.  He spread out his hands and drew up his shoulders.

“My friends are angry,” he said sadly.  “It is not enough that I study?  I must also work?  Ver’ well, I labor.  I sell the newspaper.  But, to buy newspapers, one must have money—­a dollar; two dollars.  Ver’ leetle; only—­I have it not.”

We gave him another dollar and he went out smiling and hopeful.  It seemed that at last we had solved his problem.  Tish recalled one of her Sunday-school scholars who sold papers and saved enough to buy a second-hand automobile and rear a family.  But our fond hopes were dashed to the ground when, the next morning, Hannah, opening the door at Tish’s to bring in the milk bottles, found a huge stack of the night-before’s newspapers and a note on top addressed to Tish, which said:-

  Deer Mother Tish:  You see now that I am no good.  I wish to die! 
  I hav one papier sold, and newsboys kell me on sight.  I hav but you
  and God—­and God has forget!

  Tufik.

We were discouraged and so, clearly, was Tufik.  For ten days we did not hear from him, except that a flirty little Syrian boy called for the ten dollars on Saturday and brought a pair of Tufik’s shoes for us to have resoled.  But one day Tish telephoned in some excitement and said that Tufik was there and wanted us to go to a wedding.

“His little sister’s wedding!” she explained.  “The dear child is all excited.  He says it has been going on for two days and this is the day of the ceremony.”

Aggie was spending the afternoon with me, and spoke up hastily.

“Ask her if I have time to go home and put on my broadcloth,” she said.  “I’m not fixed for a wedding.”

Tish said there was no time.  She would come round with the machine and we were to be ready in fifteen minutes.  Aggie hesitated on account of intending to wash her hair that night and so not having put up her crimps; but she finally agreed to go and Tish came for us.  Tufik was in the machine.  He looked very tidy and wore the shoes we had had repaired, a pink carnation in his buttonhole, and an air of suppressed excitement.

“At last,” he said joyously while Tish cranked the car—­“at last my friends see my three mothers!  They think Tufik only talks—­now they see!  And the priest will bless my mothers on this so happy day.”