Page:Frank Stockton - Vizier of the two-horned Alexander.djvu/42

THE VIZIER OF THE At this he sat up very straight, on the extreme edge of his chair; his eyes sparkled.

"You must excuse me," he said, "but for twenty seconds I am going to be angry. I can't help it. It is n't your fault, but that remark always enrages me. I expect it, of course, but it makes my blood boil, all the same."

"Then you have told your story before?" I said.

"Yes," he answered. "I have told it to certain persons to whom I thought it should be known. Some of these have believed it, some have not; but, believers or disbelievers, all have died and disappeared. Their opinions are nothing to me. You are now the only living being who knows my story."

I was going to ask a question here, but he did not give me a chance. He was very much moved.

"I hate that Wandering Jew," said he, "or, I should say, I despise the thin film of a tradition from which he was constructed. There never was a Wandering Jew. There could not have been; it is impossible to conceive of a human being sent forth to