But the cameldriver he asked to be excused. The dervish said:
"Don't you own these camels?"
"Yes, they're mine."
"Are you in debt?"
"Who--me? No."
"Well, a man that owns a hundred camels and ain't in debt is rich--and
not only rich, but very rich. Ain't it so?"
The camel-driver owned up that it was so. Then the dervish says:
"God has made you rich, and He has made me poor. He has His reasons, and
they are wise, blessed be His name. But He has willed that His rich shall
help His poor, and you have turned away from me, your brother, in my
need, and He will remember this, and you will lose by it."
That made the camel-driver feel shaky, but all the same he was born
hoggish after money and didn't like to let go a cent; so he begun to
whine and explain, and said times was hard, and although he had took a
full freight down to Balsora and got a fat rate for it, he couldn't git
no return freight, and so he warn't making no great things out of his
trip. So the dervish starts along again, and says:
"All right, if you want to take the risk; but I reckon you've made a
mistake this time, and missed a chance."
Of course the camel-driver wanted to know what kind of a chance he had
missed, because maybe there was money in it; so he run after the dervish,
and begged him so hard and earnest to take pity on him that at last the
dervish gave in, and says:
"Do you see that hill yonder? Well, in that hill is all the treasures of
the earth, and I was looking around for a man with a particular good kind
heart and a noble, generous disposition, because if I could find just
that man, I've got a kind of a salve I could put on his eyes and he could
see the treasures and get them out.
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