Page:The cream of the jest; a comedy of evasions (IA creamofjestcomed00caberich).pdf/170

 II

Deals With Pen Scratches

Then Kennaston was in Alexandria when John the Grammarian pleaded with the victorious Arabian general Amrou to spare the royal library, the sole repository at this period of many of the masterworks of Greek and Roman literature.

But Amrou only laughed, with a practical man's contempt for such matters. "The Koran contains all that is necessary to salvation: if these books teach as the Koran teaches they are superfluous; if they contain anything contrary to the Koran they ought to be destroyed. Let them be used as fuel for the public baths."

And this was done. Curious, very curious, it was to Kennaston, to witness this utilitarian employment of a nation's literature; and it moved him strangely. He had come at this season to believe that individual acts can count for nothing, in the outcome of things. Whatever might