Page:The Plutocrat (1927).pdf/491

 "That's what I meant," Tinker said. "Plum out o' date. I mean the whole business."

"Sir?"

"It's like this," Tinker explained as he lighted his cigar: "What was the name of that other old fellow we saw his tomb over at the mud town that had the big smells?"

"Sidi Okba, the great Mohammedan conqueror."

"Yes. You said he'd been moulderin' there thirteen hundred years, and this one you say fifteen hundred. That old Sidi Okba was a Mohammedan and wanted to kill everybody didn't think the way he did, and here's this old fellow wanted to send everybody to hell didn't think the way he did. Listen, John. It's all out o' date."

"Sir?"

"Listen," Tinker said indulgently. "What's it all about? I mean everything—all these mountains and the ocean and the Desert, and all these Arabs and French people, and us? I'm talkin' about the whole possetucky—the whole blame kit-an'-boodle—everything and everybody. What's the big idea? What's the object? Well, one man's guess is as good as the next man's. This old fellow didn't know any more about it than that other one did down there in