LITMIR.BIZ

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new political freedom does like it, for it rather upsets the new conceit. But he evidently knew his politicians, and they him. They got up one by one and made for the door, each offering a different excuse designed to cover up obedience under a cloak of snappy independence. Not one of them drew a retort from him, or as much as a farewell nod.

      When the last one was gone, and the process took up all of half an hour, he sat and looked down his nose at me for several minutes without speaking. You could have guessed just as easily what an alligator was thinking about, and I tried to emulate him, pretending to go off into the brown study that the Turks call kaif, out of which it is considered bad manners to disturb your best friend, let alone a stranger. But manners proved to be no barrier in his case.

      He began talking to me in Arabic—directly at me, slowly and deliberately, but I did not understand very much of it and it was not difficult to pretend I did not hear. However, Suliman was in different case; the boy began to get very restless under the monolog, and I tugged at his back hair more than once to remind him of the part he had to play.

      Discovering that the Arabic took no effect on me, the alligator person changed to French.

      “They speak French in Damascus. I know you are not deaf. You are a spy. I know your name. I know what your business was before you came here. I know why you want to see the staff-captain. You have a letter for him; I know what is in it. No use trying to deceive me; I have ways of my own of discovering things. Do you know what happens to spies who refuse to answer my questions? They are attended to. Quite simple. They receive attention. Nobody hears of them again.

      “There are drains in Jerusalem—big, dark, smelly, ancient, full of rats—very useful drains. You think the Staff-Captain Ali Mirza will protect you. At a word from me he will make the request that you receive immediate attention. You will disappear down a drain, where even Allah will forget that you ever existed. Staff-Captain Ali Mirza is my old friend. Better let me see that letter.”

      I felt like laughing at the drain threats although Suliman was still shivering from the effect of the earlier Arabic version. But the statement that he knew the real Ali Mirza might be true, in which case Grim’s disguise was not going to last long. However, the fact that he had not yet seen through my disguise was some comfort. The wish being father of the thought, I decided he was bluffing first and last. But he had not finished yet. He tried me in English.

      “The captain will give that letter to me in any case. It is intended for me. I have other business now, and wish to save time, so give it to me at once. Here, I will give you ten piastres for it.”

      He pulled out a purse and unfolded a ten-piastre note. I took no notice. He shook it for me to see, and I awoke like a pelican at the sight of fish.

      “Yours for that letter,” he said, shaking it again.

      I nudged Suliman and nodded to him. He crossed the room, seized the ten-piastre note, and brought it back to me. I stowed it away under my shirt.

      “Come, now give me the letter.”

      I took utterly no notice, so he turned his attention to Suliman again, and resumed in Arabic.

      “Feel in his pocket and find the letter.”

      “I’m afraid,” the boy answered.

      “Of what? Of him? I will protect you. Take the letter from him.”

      Suliman chose to play the small boy, as he could very well indeed when nothing could be gained by being devilish and ultra-grown-up. He shook his head and grinned sheepishly.

      “Has he any weapons?” was the next question.

      “Ma indi khabar.” [I don’t know.]

      Evidently assault and battery was to be the next item on the program. He had not the eyes or the general air of a man who will part with ten piastres for nothing. He called to Yussuf, who came hurrying out of the scullery place. They held a whispered conference, and Yussuf nodded; then he came over to the front door and locked it, removing the key.

      “Tell him to hand over that letter!” he ordered Suliman.

      “Mafish mukhkh!” said the boy, tapping his forehead once more.

      Suliman’s notion was the right one after all—at any rate the only one available. Old alligator rolled off his perch and started for me. Yussuf timed his own assault to correspond. They would have landed on me simultaneously, if Suliman had not reminded me that madness is a safe passport nearly anywhere in the East.

      So I went stark, raving mad that minute. I once spent a night in the room of an epileptic who had delirium tremens, and learned a lot from him; some of it came to mind just when I needed it. If ever a man got ten piastres’ worth of unexpected side-show it was that old Syrian with the alligator eyes. By the time I was quite out of breath there wasn’t a cushion or a coffee-pot fit for business. Suliman was standing out of reach on the bench in a corner yelling with laughter, while the two men struggled to get through the scullery door, which was too narrow to admit them both at once. I earned that ten piastres. By the same token I did not let the kaffiyi fall off my head and betray my western origin.

      Unable to think up any more original motions, and having breath for none, I sat on the floor and spat repeatedly, having seen a madman do that on the Hebron Road and get feared, if not respected for it. There seems to be a theory prevalent in that part of the world that the sputum of a madman is contagious.

      But I overdid it. Most amateurs do overdo things.

      They got so afraid that they decided to put me out into the street at all costs, where those enemies of society, the police, might demonstrate their ingenuity. Yussuf made a dash for the front door, and I suppose he would have called in help and ended my share in the adventure, if something had not happened.

      The “something” was Noureddin Ali very much something in his own opinion.

      “Why didn’t you open the door sooner?” he demanded. “I have been knocking for two minutes.”

      He watched Yussuf lock the door again behind him, and then eyed the disheveled room with amused curiosity. He was a rat-faced little man dressed in a black silk jacket, worsted pants and brown boots, with the inevitable tarboosh set at an angle of sheer impudence—a man at least fifty years old by the look of him, but full of that peppery vigor that so often clings to little men in middle life. On the whole he looked more like a school-teacher, or a lawyer than a conspirator; but Yussuf addressed him with great deference as “Noureddin Ali Bey,” and even old alligator-eyes became obsequious.

      Both Yussuf and the other man began explaining the situation to him in rapid-fire Arabic. I, meanwhile, recovering from the fit as fast as I dared and trying to remember how to do it. Noureddin Ali was plainly for having me thrown out, until they mentioned the name of Staff-Captain Ali Mirza; at that he tried to cross-examine Suliman at great length, but could get nothing out of him. Suliman had evidently overheard Grim talking about Noureddin Ali, and was very much afraid of him.

      “All right,” Noureddin Ali said at last. “No more business today, Yussuf. Keep the door locked, but admit the captain. We must find out what this message is about.”

      Yussuf went to tidying up the place, while Noureddin Ali and the alligator person talked excitedly in low tones in the corner near the scullery door. I lay on the floor with one eye open, expecting Grim every minute; but it must have been four in the afternoon before he came, and all that while, with only short intervals for food and coffee, Noureddin Ali and the other man talked steadily, discussing over and over again the details of some plan.

      Shortly after midday Suliman began to whimper for food. Yussuf produced a mess of rice and mutton, of which the two Syrians ate enormously before giving any to the boy; then they put what was left in the dish on the floor in front of me, pretty much in the way you feed a dog, and I hate to remember what I did to it. It is enough that I did not overlook Grim’s advice to eat like a lunatic, and however suspicious of me Noureddin Ali might otherwise have been he was satisfied at the end of that performance.

      Several people tried the door, and some

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