“Nageeb,” said Khalil Khayyat, “there has come a letter from the north.”
“What has this Salim accomplished,” asked Nageeb Fiani, “in alleviation of the sorrows of love?”
“This Salim,” said Khalil Khayyat, “made a song that could not be uttered. It is well,” said Khalil Khayyat. “You remember?”
“Then know this,” said Khalil Khayyat, abruptly, “the song he could not utter he sings in gentle deeds. It is a great song; it is too great for singing—it must be lived. This Salim,” he added, “is the greatest poet that ever lived. He expresses his sublime and perfect compositions in dear deeds. He is, indeed, a great poet.”
Nageeb Fiani thought it great argument for poetry; so, too, Khalil Khayyat.
TUMM of the _Good Samaritan_ kicked the cabin stove into a sputter and roar of flame so lusty that the black weather of Jump Harbor was instantly reduced from arrogant and disquieting menace to an impression of contrast grateful to the heart. “Not bein’ a parson,” said he, roused now from a brooding silence by this radiant inspiration, “I isn’t much of a hand at accountin’ for the mysteries o’ God; an’ never havin’ made a world, I isn’t no critic o’ creation. Still an’ all,” he persisted, in a flash of complaint, “it did seem t’ me, somehow, accordin’ t’ my lights, which wasn’t trimmed at no theological college, that the Maker o’ Archibald Shott o’ Jump Harbor hadn’t been quite kind t’ Arch.” The man shifted his feet in impatient disdain, then laughed—a gently contemptuous shaft, directed at his insolence: perhaps, too, at his ignorance. It fell to a sigh, however, which continued expression, presently, in a glance of poignant bewilderment. “Take un by an’ all,” he pursued, “I was wonderful sorry for Arch. Seemed t’ me, sir, though he bore the sign o’ the Lord’s own hand, as do us all, that he’d but a mean lookout for gracious livin’, after all.
“‘Arch, b’y,’ says I, ‘you got the disposition of a snake.’
“‘Is I?’ says he. ‘Maybe you’re right, Tumm. I never knowed a snake in a intimate way.’
“‘You got the soul,’ said I, ‘of a ill-born squid.’
“‘Don’t know,’ said he; ‘never _seed_ a squid’s soul.’
“‘Your tongue,’ says I, ‘is a flame o’ fire; ’tis a wonder t’ me she haven’t blistered your lips long afore this.’