Page:Rowland--The closing net.djvu/161

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ROSENTHAL
145

fanatical Moslem outfit which was on a jehad, or holy war. Rosenthal had stood off this outfit at the cost of great personal danger and considerable financial expense. He had stopped a bullet for his pains, but this had not stopped Rosenthal. The Vatican had made him a baron and the French had created him an officer of the Légion d'Honneur.

Rosenthal was a man of big heart and big ideas. I had known him quite well in Buenos Ayres, and he had stood my friend in a nasty business which might otherwise have cost me dear. This he had done out of sheer kind-heartedness and a personal liking that he had conceived for me. I had not seen him since, so I crossed the room to pass the time o' day.

When he saw me his big, bushy eyebrows went up with surprise.

"How do you do, Baron?" I said, and held out my hand.

Rosenthal flung down his morning paper and, without rising, held out his great, hairy paw.

"Py Chingo," says he, "it is Fr'rank. Vell, vell. And how do you do, and whom? The last time we met vas in Buenos Ayres. And how haf you been, my yoong frendt?"

I told him that I had been very well and was now in the motor-car business.

"Goot!" says he. "That is a better business than you were in down there in South America." He grinned. "I am glad to learn that you have taken to more honest vor'rk—alt'ough the last man who sold me a car vas a t'ief. He r'robbed me—oh, my fr'rendt—und it vas not der last time."