Page:Alien Souls by Achmed Abdullah (1922).djvu/148

Finally the Kurd rose.

"I shall call again if I may," he said.

"Please do." Krelekian accompanied him to the door. "Call again. I shall make you welcome. What are you doing in New York? Where are you staying? How long have you been here?"

"I came with an Arab doctor whom I met in Smyrna," replied the Kurd. "We live—oh, a ways north, near the University. He is taking a special course in the medicine of the Americans, and he teaches me in payment for my services. Some day I shall be a doctor myself." He took the other's hand, shook it, then, just as he was about to release it, raised it close up to his eyes and studied it. "Zado!" he went on, giving his words the emphasis of a lowered voice. "What is the matter with you?"

"Why—nothing."

Again the Kurd studied the other's pudgy, flabby hand.

"Well"—he shrugged his shoulders—"perhaps I am mistaken. Never mind."

And he walked away, while the Armenian looked after him, smiling, happy once more, and saying to his chief clerk that indeed America was a great and wonderful country.

"It teaches decency and kindliness and forgiving even to a Kurd," he wound up, and he went upstairs to kiss the red lips of Aziza.

She yawned.

Mohammed Yar had not lied when he had told Zado Krelekian about his relations with the Arab doctor. The latter, a graduate of the University of Paris, had come to New York to take a special course un4er Professor