As the taxicab drew up at the curb, Tish clutched my arm and Aggie uttered a muffled cry and promptly sneezed.  Seated on the doorstep, celluloid collar shining, the brown pasteboard suitcase at his feet, was Tufik.  He sat calmly smoking a cigarette, his eyes upturned in placid and Oriental contemplation of the heavens.

“Drive on!” said Tish desperately.  “If he sees us we are lost!”

“Drive where?” demanded Charlie.

Tufik’s gaze had dropped gradually—­another moment and his brown eyes would rest on us.  But just then a diversion occurred.  A window overhead opened with a slam and a stream of hot water descended.  It had been carefully aimed—­as if with long practice.  Tufik was apparently not surprised.  He side-stepped it with a boredom as of many repetitions, and, picking up his suitcase, stood at a safe distance looking up.  First, in his gentle voice he addressed the window in Arabic; then from a safer distance in English.

“You ugly old she-wolf!” he said softly.  “When my three old women come back I eat you, skin and bones,—­and they shall say nothing!  They love me—­Tufik!  I am their child.  Aye!  And my child—­which comes—­will be their grandchild!”

He kissed his fingers to the upper window which closed with a slam.  Tufik stooped, picked up his suitcase, and saw the taxi for the first time.  Even in the twilight we saw his face change, his brown eyes brighten, his teeth show in his boyish smile.  The taxicab driver had stalled his engine and was cranking it.

“Sh!” I said desperately, and we all cowered back into the shadows.

Tufik approached, uncertainty changing to certainty.  The engine was started now.  Oh, for a second of time!  He was at the window now, peering into the darkness.

“Miss Tish!” he said breathlessly.  No one answered.  We hardly breathed.  And then suddenly Aggie sneezed!  “Miss Pilk!” he shouted in delight.  “My mothers!  My so dear friends—­”

The machine jerked, started, moved slowly off.  He ran beside it, a hand on the door.  Tish bent forward to speak, but Charlie Sands put his hand over her mouth.

And so we left him, standing in the street undecided, staring after us wistfully, uncertainly—­the suitcase, full of Cluny-lace centerpieces, crocheted lace, silk kimonos, and embroidered bedspreads, in his hand.

That night we hid in a hotel and the next day we started for Europe.  We heard nothing from Tufik; but on the anniversary of Mr. Wiggins’s death, while we were in Berlin, Aggie received a small package forwarded from home.  It was a small lace doily, and pinned to it was a card.  It read:—­

  For the sadness, Miss Pilk!

  Tufik.

Aggie cried over it.

THE SIMPLE LIFERS

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