by Talbot Mundy
"I'll make one to give this Feisul boy a hoist"
Whoever invented chess understood the world's works as some men knowclocks and watches. He recognized a fact and based a game on it, withthe result that his game endures. And what he clearly recognized wasthis: That no king matters much as long as your side is playing awinning game. You can leave your king in his corner then to amusehimself in dignified unimportance. But the minute you begin to lose,your king becomes a source of anxiety.
In what is called real life (which is only a great game, although amighty good one) it makes no difference what you call your king. Callhim Pope if you want to, or President, or Chairman. He grows inimportance in proportion as the other side develops the attack. You'vegot to keep your symbol of authority protected or you lose.
Nevertheless, your game is not lost as long as your king can move.That's why the men who want to hurry up and start a new political eraimprison kings and cut their heads off. With no head on his shouldersyour king can only move in the direction of the cemetery, which is overthe line and doesn't count.
I love a good fight, and have been told I ought to be ashamed of it.I've noticed, though, that the folk who propose to elevate my moralsfight just as hard, and less cleanly, with their tongue than some of usdo with our fists and sinews. I'm told, too, quite frequently that asan American I ought to be ashamed of fighting for a king. Dear oldladies of both sexes have assured me that it isn't moral to give aid andcomfort to a gallant gentleman—a godless Mohammedan, too; which makesit much worse—who is striving gamely and without malice to keep hisgiven word and save his country.
But if you've got all you want, do you know of any better fun thanlending a hand while some man you happen to like gets his? I don't. Ofcourse, some fellows want too much, and it's bad manners as well aswaste of time to inflict your opinion on them. But given a reasonablepurpose and a friend who needs your assistance, is there any bettersport on earth than risking your own neck to help him put it over?
Walk wide of the man and particularly of the woman, who makes a noiseabout lining your pocket or improving your condition. An altruist is myfriend James Schuyler Grim, but he makes less noise than a panther on adark night; and I never knew a man less given to persuading you. Hehas one purpose, but almost never talks about it. It's a sure bet thatif we hadn't struck up a close friendship, sounding each other outcarefully as opportunity occurred, I would have been in the dark aboutit until this minute.
All the news of Asia from Alexandretta to the Persian Gulf and fromNorthern Turkestan to South Arabia reaches Grim's ears sooner or later.He earns his bread and butter knitting all that mess of cross-grainedinformation into one intelligible pattern; after which he interprets itand acts suddenly without advance notices.
Time and again, lone-handed, he has done better than an army corps, byplaying chief against chief in a land where the only law is individualinterpretation of the Koran.
But it wasn't until our rescue of Jeremy Ross from near Abu Kem, that Iever heard Grim come out openly and admit that he was working toestablish Feisul, third son of the King of Mecca, as king of just asmany Arabs as might care to have him over them. That was the cat he hadbeen keeping in a bag for seven years.
Right down to the minute when Grim, Jeremy a