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 selfsame bleak Broadway, he believed that for the first time in his life he was finding an unflawed happiness with nothing whatever to ask from the whimsical gods. The single drawback was no doubt an insignificant one at that, he told himself; the letters he expected had not arrived in Algiers; but although their importance to him was financial, and not to be disregarded, he had left careful directions for their forwarding, and M. Cayzac's clerk, a responsible young man, had assured him there would be no error. Ogle did not greatly disturb himself; to let a futile anxiety intrude upon fairyland would be ridiculous, he thought.

From time to time they would see, far ahead of them, Arabs driving flocks of sheep, cumbering the road; and when the automobile howled the long warning of its coming, the shepherds, peacefully trudging until then, would instantly leap into frantic action;—they did not look back, but went at the sheep as if Satan were behind them; and Ogle loved to see the flying draperies of these figures, small in the distance, like Tanagra statuettes come to life. But when the car overtook Arabs on donkeys, as it did almost continually, the picture was different. Bitterness visibly appeared upon the peaceful scene: