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Updated: June 21, 2025
"And what gave you the idea of becoming a water-carrier?" "He gave me that, also. Do you suppose I have ideas? I began to lose my grief, but my time hung heavy on my hands. At thirty-two years old, to be sitting all day in a chair! He then began to instruct me, as he said, and he told me beautiful stories.
"'I have ordered one at the cart-maker's. "'But customers? I have dismissed my water-carrier, and you would not let my wife and me die with thirst. This dear Madame Desgranges, just think of it. And so, my boy, in three days work. And you, Madam James, come here; and he carried off Juliana."
And there are people who think thus still, as if the mere desire, without anything more, were enough or as if the felicities of the heavenly world were dependent solely on Christ's arbitrary will, and could be bestowed by an exercise of mere power, as an Eastern prince may make this man his vizier and that other one his water-carrier.
He wondered, though, for what merit of his the former water-carrier happened to be re-born into so wealthy a family. So he kept the matter in mind, and from time to time inquired as to the child's well-being. Seven more years went by, and the boy gradually grew up. He did not show much taste for learning, but he loved to keep birds. Old Wang was still strong and healthy.
"Mem, no have got chocolate, how can make puddlin'?" I laughed outright. Jim looked hurt. "Jim, did you ever hear of one Crusoe?" "No, Tuan!" "Well, he was a Tuan who lived for thirty years without once eating chocolate 'puddlin'. We'll not eat any for ten days. Sabe?" Jim retired, mortified and astonished. Inside of another half-hour, the Tukang Ayer, or water-carrier, arrived on the scene.
On the three following mornings the men of the deceased's house would attend by the newly-made grave, in company with the tolba, and would distribute bread and fruit to the poor, and when their task was over and the way clear, the veiled women would bring flowers, with myrtle, willows, and young leaves of the palm, and lay them on the grave, and over these the water-carrier would empty his goat-skin.
At last one day I hid in a dark corner, and overheard the magic syllables; they were three in number. The Egyptian gave the pestle its instructions, and then went off to the market. Well, next day he was again busy in the market: so I took the pestle, dressed it, pronounced the three syllables exactly as he had done, and ordered it to become a water-carrier.
Presently, he turned and saw a water-carrier trudging along, with his skin and gugglet, crying out and saying, "O exchange! The water-carrier looked at him and gave him the gugglet which he took and gazing into it, shook it up and lastly poured it out on the ground. Asked the water-carrier, "Why dost thou not drink?"; and he answered, saying, "Give me to drink."
My eyes were trying to take in the splendid Eastern scenes. Here were figures which had come right out of the Arabian Nights. Was that not Haroun Al Raschid, Commander of the Faithful, disguised as a water-carrier, with a goatskin bottle slung over his shoulder, and great yellow baggy trousers and a striped cummerbund?
He would moreover sit for hours singing romances of which I understood not one word, praised be the mother of God, but which he said all related to his family; there were hundreds of that name in Tunis, therefore why should not this Hammin, this drunken water-carrier, be a Moor of Granada also? He is ugly enough to be emperor of all the Moors.
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