"Father, I must ask you to begin by remembering that I am no longer a
child and not quite a simpleton. I _know_ the Egyptians. I know them
better than all your people put together."
"Better than your father himself, perhaps?"
"Yes, sir, better than my father himself because--because I love them,
whereas you--you have hated them from the first. They've never deceived
me yet, sir, and, with your permission, I'm not going to deceive them."
The passionate words were hotly, almost aggressively spoken, but in some
unfathomable depth of the father's heart the old man was proud of his
son at that moment--strong, fearless, and right.
"And the sermon in public--was that also on the corruptions of Islam?"
"No, sir, it was about the spirit of the world--the greed of wealth
which is making people forget in these days that the true welfare of a
nation is moral, not material."
"Anything else?"
"Yes--the hope of a time when the world will have so far progressed
towards peace that arms will be laid down and a Redeemer will come to
proclaim a universal brotherhood."
"That didn't strike you as ridiculous--to see one unlettered man trying
to efface the laws of civilised society--asking sensible people to turn
their backs on the facts of life in order to live in a spiritual
hothouse of dreams?"
"No, Father, that did not strike me as ridiculous, because----"
"Because--what--what now?"
"Because John the Baptist and Jesus Christ did precisely the same
thing."