transparent olive tint, and of a decidedly Oriental type.  A prominent brow and arched but delicate eyebrows fitly surmounted a nose smoothly aquiline, but with the broad well-set nostrils that bespeak active courage.  His mouth, often smiling, never laughed, and the lips, though closely meeting, were not thin and writhing and cunning, as one so often sees in eastern faces, but rather inclined to a generous Greek fullness, the curling lines ever ready to express a sympathy or a scorn which, the commanding features above seemed to control and curb, as the stern, square-elbowed Arab checks his rebellious horse, or gives him the rein, at will.

But though Mr. Isaacs was endowed with exceptional gifts of beauty by a bountiful nature, those I have enumerated were by no means what first attracted the attention of the observer.  I have spoken of his graceful figure and perfect Iranian features, but I hardly noticed either at our first meeting.  I was enthralled and fascinated by his eyes.  I once saw in France a jewel composed of six precious stones, each a gem of great value, so set that they appeared to form but one solid mass, yielding a strange radiance that changed its hue at every movement, and multiplied the sunlight a thousand-fold.  Were I to seek a comparison for my friend’s eyes, I might find an imperfect one in this masterpiece of the jeweler’s art.  They were dark and of remarkable size; when half closed they were long and almond-shaped; when suddenly opened in anger or surprise they had the roundness and bold keenness of the eagle’s sight.  There was a depth of life and vital light in them that told of the pent-up force of a hundred generations of Persian magii.  They blazed with the splendour of a god-like nature, needing neither meat nor strong drink to feed its power.

My mind was made up.  Between his eyes, his temperance, and his dental consonants, he certainly might be an Italian.  Being myself a native of Italy, though an American by parentage, I addressed him in the language, feeling comparatively sure of his answer.  To my surprise, and somewhat to my confusion, he answered in two words of modern Greek—­“[Greek:  den enoesa]”—­“I do not understand.”  He evidently supposed I was speaking a Greek dialect, and answered in the one phrase of that tongue which he knew, and not a good phrase at that.

“Pardon me,” said I in English, “I believed you a countryman, and ventured to address you in my native tongue.  May I inquire whether you speak English?”

I was not a little astonished when he answered me in pure English, and with an evident command of the language.  We fell into conversation, and I found him pungent, ready, impressive, and most entertaining, thoroughly acquainted with Anglo-Indian and English topics, and apparently well read.  An Indian dinner is a long affair, so that we had ample time to break the ice, an easy matter always for people who are not English, and when, after the fruit, he invited