Do thou in kindness pay my creditor and bring me the discharge.' He named an Armenian gentleman of my acquaintance--an amiable, learned man of modest means, the last person in the country whom I should have thought a usurer.

Nor was he one habitually, for he himself informed me that this loan to the Druze chieftain was his sole investment of the kind.

I called on him one afternoon in the city, and handed him my cheque, explaining how the matter stood.
'You do me a bad turn.

Unlucky day!' he sighed as he received it.

'My little fortune was more safe with him than in a bank, and every year it brought me in a pretty income.