"
"Why didn't you arrest him?"
"We gave our word to the French that he should have complete protection
and immunity. It seemed a good thing to us to have such an influential
banker here; he has international connections. As recently as
yesterday, twenty minutes before that ultimatum came, he was in this
room assuring me that he would be able to solve the credit difficulty
within a day or two."
"Would you like to send for him now?" suggested Grim.
"I doubt if he would come."
"Well, have him fetched!"
Feisul shook his head.
"If other people break their promises, that is no reason why we should
break ours. If we can defeat the French and force them to make other
terms, then we will expel him from Syria. I leave at midnight,
Jimgrim."
"To defeat the French? You go to your Waterloo! You're in check with
only one move possible, and I'm here to make you realize it. You're a
man after my own heart, Feisul, but you and your Arabs are children at
dealing with these foreign exploiters!
"They can beat you at every game but honesty. And listen: If you did
defeat the French--if you drove them into the sea tomorrow, they'd get
away with all the money in Beirut and you'd still be at the mercy of
foreign capitalists! Instead of an independent Arab kingdom here you'd
have a mixture of peoples and religions all plotting against one another
and you, with capitulations and foreign consuls getting in the way, and
bond-holding bankers sitting on top of it all like the Old Man of the
Sea in the story of Sindbad the Sailor!
"Leave that to the French! Let them have all Syria to stew in! Go to
England where your friends are.
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