Page:Dramatic Moments in American Diplomacy (1918).djvu/120

100 the 20th day of the moon Dge Mazirl Covel, corresponding to 1815, April 24th. Signed in our well-beloved city of Algiers. ", Son of Mohammed, Conquerer and Great."

We recommend this dispatch to our friend Francisco Villa, and other kindred spirits of the chaparral, as an improvement on their own method of communication. They need not be too proud to receive lessons in procedure from Omar, Son of Mohammed. As a practitioner of the Trade of Frightfulness and a successful follower of the business of freebooting, he still remains without a peer. Beside him the Mexican is a kindergarten teacher. It is true that Omar was a seafaring man. But all the more must have been his natural temptation to use dreadful and furious language. Being a master in the pastime of robbing and enslaving trustful and helpless Americans, he must have had some weighty diplomatic reason for the poetical and gentle nature of his dispatches.