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PAUL PATOFF
BY
F. MARION CRAWFORD
AUTHOR OF "A ROMAN SINGER," "TO LEEWARD," "AN AMERICANPOLITICIAN," "SARACINESCA," ETC.
NEW YORK
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
LONDON: MACMILLAN & CO., Ltd.1911
All rights reserved
COPYRIGHT, 1887,By F. MARION CRAWFORD.
COPYRIGHT, 1892,BY F. MARION CRAWFORD.
First published elsewhere. Reprinted with corrections, April,1893; June, 1894; June, 1899; July, 1906; January, 1912.
Norwood Press
J. S. Cushing & Co.—Berwick & Smith
Norwood Mass. U.S.A.
| Chapters: I, II, III, IV, V, VI, VII, VIII, IX, X, XI, XII, XIII, XIV, XV, XVI, XVII, XVIII, XIX, XX, XXI, XXII, XXIII, XXIV. WRITINGS OF F. MARION CRAWFORD |
PAUL PATOFF.
My dear lady—my dear friend—you have asked me to tell you a story, andI am going to try, because there is not anything I would not try if youasked it of me. I do not yet know what it will be about, but it isimpossible that I should disappoint you; and if the proverb says, "Needsmust when the devil drives," I can mend the proverb into a show ofgrace, and say, The most barren earth must needs bear flowers when anangel sows the seed.
When you asked for the story I could only find a dry tale of my owndoings, which I detailed to you somewhat at length, as we cantered downinto the Valley of the Sweet Waters. The south wind was warm thisafternoon, though it brought rain with it and wetted us a little as werode; it was soft and dreamy, and made everything look sleepy, andmisty, and a little uncertain in outline. Baghdad sniffed it in his deepred nostrils, for it was the wind of his home; but Haroun al Raschidshook the raindrops restlessly from his gray mane, as though he hated tobe damp, and was thinking longingly of the hot sand and the desert sun.But he had no right to complain, for water must needs come in theoases,—and truly I know of no fairer and sweeter resting-place inlife's journey than the Valley of the Sweet Waters above the GoldenHor