You hear people talk about the disadvantages of living in New York. Personally, I cannot think of greater happiness than being in this great metropolis, if only for the reason that I can be all over Europe in one night. Five cents carfare lands you in the French district. Five more minutes reading of the "Subway Sun" lands you in Hungary; from whence you can tramp in fifteen minutes to Italy or Greece or Turkey, as the spirit moves you or inclination dictates. You can eat your breakfast in a Russian restaurant on East Fifth Street, have caviar and Bolshevik talk; go for lunch in China, on Mott Street, where they will serve you tea grown on the highest mountain of Asia; for dinner you can have your choice between Persian, French, Hindu or Greek menus, and still have the cuisines of a dozen other foreign nationalities to choose from if you are alive the next morning.

And now, in case you ever intend going down to the Syrian Quarter for supper and atmosphere, I will acquaint you with the story of Luleika, as it was told to me by Malouf the jeweler, who is a Mohammedan gentleman, born in Constantinople. Malouf believes in the glory of Allah. His face is as dry as smoked parchment, and he touches the ground with his forehead twice a day, at sunrise and sundown, as it is commanded in the Koran. Malouf lives on Washington Street, which is at a stone's throw from the Statue of Liberty in the Bay of New York.

"And it is written in the Koran: 'For whosoever sells his soul for gain, shall suffer in his flesh, and whosoever sells his flesh for gain shall suffer in his soul.'

"But you, my listener, are either a Christian Giaour or a Yehudi Kepek, and know nothing about the Koran.

"And Luleika was young then, in her twenty-fifth year, and the Koran was only a name to her and not the fountain of wisdom which it really is.

"She was young and beautiful when her brother, Ali, who was a rich dealer in rugs, brought her here, to this pork-eating country. Her brother was very proud of her. Not one woman in a thousand could wear a diamond-studded comb in her hair as well as Luleika could; not one in a million could carmine her nails as well; and not another in the whole world could make the lines of her mouth harmonize so well with the curves of her eyebrows.

"I loved Luleika. But I was poor and her brother was rich, and richer yet were the friends he had. So Ali set up a store, not far from the Christian church around the corner, in which he sold rugs to the rich of this country. And in the store he put up a little cage in which sat Luleika like an imprisoned bird. Men came to buy rugs and smile at the girl. Ali became richer every day. As his gold piled up he forgot the good teachings of the holy book and ate pork and drank wine. And Luleika did as he did.

"Then my mother sent word through Mustapha Hogea, the priest, that I should come home that she might see me before joining her father in Allah. And I answered: "I have bread here a-plenty, and there is a woman my heart holds my eyes on, and you may die in peace, for I shall follow the words of the Koran and end my daily prayers with Allah il Allah, Mohammed rassul Allah."

"She must have died peacefully.

"Daily, under some excuse or other, I went to see Luleika. She changed her dress little by little as she learned the language of this country. Her beautifully woven bournous was replaced with a white waist which looked as if made out of tissue paper, and her heavy pantaloons, cut from goods brought on a camel's back from Damascus, were exchanged for a flimsy skirt, the like of which is worn by the women of the land of the Francs.

"And one day, when I no longer could wait, I spoke to her of my love. She listened to the end and then she said: 'Thou art young and strong. A woman could love thee. But thou art poor, and I am afraid of poverty. I shall therefore marry Kurguz Mehmed, the partner of my brother Ali.'

"'But Mehmed is dreadfully old!' I cried.

"'I wish he were older,' she told me.

"Luleika married Kurguz Mehmed. He was so old he could not walk without a cane. Kurguz had become very rich in this country, rich and dissolute. He was the shame of his people.

Luleika and old Kurguz walked through Washington Street

"Ali knew, Luleika knew, yet she married him, because he was rich.

"And I, I worked myself tired and cried myself to sleep. Twice the soul of my mother stayed my hand from murder. Thousands of rings and brooches in silver and gold I have made for men and women, and in them I have engraved all the tortures of my soul and flesh. I have put sapphires and rubies in the eyes of the engraved serpents on the brooches and pale green topazes in the mouths of the carved monsters on the rings I made.

"And every day I took an oath afresh never to see her again.

"Then one day her last words to me rang in my ears: 'I wish he were older.'

"But Kurguz Mehmed got stronger and younger every day now. I saw him pass the street without leaning on his cane.

"Five years later, one morning, Luleika suddenly appeared at the door of my place.

"'That you make for me a brooch, Malouf,' she said, 'a brooch as beautiful as you ever made.'

"I looked at her. My heart grew cold, my mouth burned. Was this the same Luleika? She was still beautiful, but her flesh had lost its firmness, and the corners of her mouth drooped.

"And as I worked at her brooch I cooled the white-heated golden wires with my tears, yet I dared not speak to her of my love, for she was the wife of another man. She must have known I still loved her; women always do.

"Kurguz Mehmed lived on and grew richer every day. He lived on five more years, and then five more and then some more. The last two years he lay, with no use of limbs and eyes on his bed, and allowed not that she leave him alone. He was still her master.

"Then he died.

"She was left alone and rich, oh very rich. Every rug sold in this country had added something to her riches. But she was no longer young when Kurguz died. She was no longer young and she knew it.

"My soul was dead to her. My flesh burnt to cold cinders. She came for a ring one day. I spoke nothing at all to her save of the ring—nothing of love.

"But there were other men, men of our people who have come here in the last fifteen years. Young men wooed her, swore love to her. She never believed. Was she not ten times as rich as Kurguz was when she married him for his wealth?

"What she herself had done was the measure by which she weighed what others may do. She would have believed the young men, ten years ago, should Kurguz have died when she expected him to. But now, her mirror told her: 'What else do men see to love in thee except thy gold?'

"As she grew richer she believed still less. She bedecked herself with the costliest jewels, yet she always knew they wouldn't bring back youth.

"Go now, you my listener, to the store of Luleika, Kurguz Mehmed's rich widow. Buy rugs. The richer she will become the greater her punishment will be. It will poison her mind and poison the souls of her wooers.

"Because her sin was so great Allah prolonged the life of even so great a sinner as Kurguz Mehmed.

"I shall live my days engraving this sad story in gold and silver. Believers and infidels, rich and poor, in the thousands are near it without knowing."

Malouf finished his story. For the time being I thought myself somewhere in the Orient—in Constantinople or Salonica, where roving packs of dogs howl day and night and no soul cares about the infernal noise—somewhere near Turkish giamies topped by the crescent moon—somewhere where men sit with their feet in the gutter and smoke from long pipes, while veiled women walk near the walls.

But when I walked out of Malouf's store, boys were just lighting the paper lanterns for a block dance. Across the street hung a big war poster with famous sayings penned underneath.

As if lit by a huge flying glow-worm, the torch of the Lady of Liberty in bronze pointed to the flitting stars. Dark-eyed men and women returned home, to the Orient from the Occident. Night was coming.

A few men on the street, facing the setting sun, bowed very low as they said their short prayers to Allah, who is here, there and everywhere.