there were fifty in the box, and which Hassan
told him contained each one hundred tomans,
equal to fifty pounds of English money. Those
bags now rose up in the mind of Ali Mahmûd,
and drew him forth through the darkness on the
perilous enterprise of their capture.

He made his way through the deserted streets,
plotting how he should gain access to the house.
All was dim and silent; the good Mussulmans
of the city were in bed, and only a few prowling
and hungry dogs were abroad. As these canine
wanderers scattered at his approach, and ran
snarling up the dark archways of obscure and
winding thoroughfares, Ali Mahmûd might have
thought, had his mind been free for such cogitations,
how little reason the dogs had to shun his
presence, and with how much greater fitness
they might have hailed him as a fellow outcast.
But he pressed on resolutely towards the rice
merchant's house, and, having reached the place
and climbed the wall of the courtyard, took a
general survey before setting to work. A slight
inspection showed him that Hassan and the only
other inmate of the dwelling, his unmarried
daughter, were asleep in the rooms below. He
made his way through a window, passed up the
staircase, and entered the room that contained
the money chest. With an iron bar which he
had brought from his home, he forced up the lid
of the chest, and seized sixteen of the bags,
containing altogether the sum of eight hundred
pounds English. It was with difficulty that he
could hold so many in his two hands; but he
got to the stairhead somehow. Perhaps it was
this embarrassment that awoke his conscience;
but, whatever the cause, certain it is that his
conscience began to trouble him when he had
taken one or two steps down. He dropped four
of the bags, and, with so much the less weight
in his hands and on his mind, issued out into the
courtyard. On reaching the tank in the middle
of the yard, that troublesome conscience, flushed
by its recent triumph, began to make fresh
demands on him, and to exact a further
concession; so, being resolved to meet those
demands in a liberal and handsome spirit, he
dropped eight of the bags of gold, and went on
very much relieved, and even pleased at the
thought of his own virtue. "Four hundred
tomans," said he to himself, " are enough for
my needs. With that sum I shall make more,
and shall never again be a beggar. Hassan will
see that thieves have a conscience."

At this moment, Ali Mahmûd observed
towards the east the first soft blueness of approaching
day. The street dogs had ceased howling,
and from out a neighbouring palm tree an early
bird was shaking a few bright notes of morning
song. The depredator saw there was no time
to be lost. He began to unbar the gate, and
was just about to draw it open when, from the
minaret gallery of a mosque nigh at hand, the
deep grave voice of the Muezzin, calling the
people to morning prayers, dropped clear and
strong through the luminous obscurity of dawn.

"Prayer is better than sleep! Prayer is
better than sleep!" Ali Mahmûd heard the
voice as it came floating down, distant and
sweet, from the dim mid air; and he obeyed its
solemn injunctions. Like a good Mussulman,
who had been in his time to the Holy City, he
at once threw aside all worldly thoughts, and
bent his mind to his devotions. The four
remaining bags were placed by the wall, and Ali
knelt upon the pavement, absorbed in prayer
and genuflexions.

But the same cry had called Hassan also to
the duties of religion. Descending the stairs,
that he might make his ablutions at the tank in
the courtyard, he stumbled over the money bags
left there by Ali Mahmûd. Without a moment's
pause, he rushed to the room which contained
the strong box, and the sight of the open lid
confirmed his fears. Could the thieves be still
in the house? thought he. He would first look
into the courtyard. Thither he went, and there
was Ali Mahmûd, still going through his prayers.
"Thief!" exclaimed Hassan; "my money!"
Ali Mahmûd made no response; he was thinking
only of his devotions. The rice merchant was
struck by this religious absorption of mind, and
stood a little apart till the pious burglar should
have made an end of his addresses.

When he had finished, Ali Mahmûd rose to
his feet, and, again kneeling before Hassan,
returned him his money, and began a recital of
his life. Hassan was deeply touched; for he
had known Ali's father, had performed with him
the pilgrimage to Mecca, and was with him
when he met his death. However, he
dissembled his emotion, and replied, with as much
sternness as he could assume, "You are a lying
thief!" He then seized Ali Mahmûd, shut him
up in the stable, and exclaimed, "There you
shall stay till the darogha and his men" (police
inspector and policemen) " come to fetch you
to jail." And with those words he sallied forth,
to seek- not an officer of justice, but—a molla,
or priest. Returning with one of the holy men,
he called his daughter from her room, brought
the thief out of the stable, and ordered the
molla to unite the two in wedlock.

"And they lived happily ever afterwards?"
Well, let us hope so. At any rate, Ali Mahmûd
is now a thriving merchant of Tabriz, and one
of the chief importers of Manchester goods.

FRESH FISH.

A PLANT which shall grow with vigour in
Europe, producing fibre twice as abundant,
twice as strong, and twice as fine as cotton; a
bird as good to eat as the turkey, or better, as
rapid in growth, four times as prolific, and reared
with a quarter of the trouble; a tree, to stand
our English winters, with the timber of the oak,
the foliage of the carob, the flower of the rose,
and the fruit of the nectarine; all these are most
desirable, and involve no contradiction to natural
possibility. We have not got them yet; no
more had we Jules Margottin roses and Keen's
seedling strawberries a hundred years ago. We
may get them one day; but we may have a long
time to wait for them.