Read "The Mercy of Allah" by Hilaire Belloc online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
A week later, at the hour of Public Executions and Beheadings, the / seven boys were again assembled cross-legged at the feet of their / revered uncle, who, when he had refreshed them with cold water, and / himself with a curious concoction of fermented barley, addressed them / as follows:
"You will remember, my lads, how I was left cut off from my dear / home and from all companions, in a strange country, and with no more / than 1,500 dinars with which to face the world. This sum may seem to / you large, but I can assure you that to the operations of commerce" / (and here the merchant yawned) "it is but a drop in the ocean; and / I had already so far advanced during one brief week in my character / of Financier that I gloomily considered how small a sum that 1,500 / was wherewith to meet the cunning, the gluttony, and the avarice of / this great world. But a brief sleep (which I took under a Baobab / tree to save the cost of lodging) refreshed at once my body and my / intelligence, and with the next morning I was ready to meet the / world."