The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night
THE BOOK OF THE THOUSAND NIGHTS AND A NIGHT A Plain and Literal Translation of the Arabian Nights Entertainments Translated and Annotated by Richard F. Burton VOLUME FOUR To Foster Fitzgerald Arbuthnot. My Dear Arbuthnot, I have no fear that a friend, whose friendship has lasted nearly a third of a century, will misunderstand my reasons for inscribing his name upon these pages. You have lived long enough in the East and, as your writings show, observantly enough, to detect the pearl which lurks in the kitchen-midden, and to note that its lustre is not dimmed nor its value diminished by its unclean surroundings.
"Why didn't you take the seven-o'clock then?"
"We didn't know about it until it was too late. We were getting some
breakfast at a restaurant down the street there. We're going to take the
nine-forty-six."
"The nine-forty-six is an express to New York, son. What's your name?
And what's his?"
"My name's Thayer and his is Byrd. We go to Brimfield Academy."
"Do, eh? Aren't you a long way from home?"
"Yes. You see, we went over to Thacher to the football game and lost the
trolley. And then a fellow offered to give us a ride in an automobile as
far as this place and we got in and a wheel came off and we had to walk
the rest of the way. But we got lost in the woods somewhere and--"
"What sort of a looking fellow was this? The one with the auto, I mean?"
"Oh, he was about twenty years old, with kind of long hair, light-brown,
and sort of greyish eyes."
"Tell you his name?"
THE BOOK OF THE THOUSAND NIGHTS AND A NIGHT A Plain and Literal Translation of the Arabian Nights Entertainments Translated and Annotated by Richard F. Burton VOLUME FOUR To Foster Fitzgerald Arbuthnot. My Dear Arbuthnot, I have no fear that a friend, whose friendship has lasted nearly a third of a century, will misunderstand my reasons for inscribing his name upon these pages. You have lived long enough in the East and, as your writings show, observantly enough, to detect the pearl which lurks in the kitchen-midden, and to note that its lustre is not dimmed nor its value diminished by its unclean surroundings.