It is considered bad form to decline hospitality offered in this way, and even if you are in a hurry you must suppress your own desire to get forward in order to be courteous to the man who wishes to be your host.
The Arabs have a saying, "None but the base and ungrateful refuse generosity"; but this does not mean that he will take a reward for being kind to you. To offer a tip is to insult him, and I hope that Boy Scouts will take it in the same light.
If you pitch your tent near that of an Arab, and become good friends with him, he will alter his tent-pegs so that they come within the line of your own and the tent ropes cross each other.
This again is a secret sign which means that he and those who live in his tent are for ever friends of you and any who are living with you.
Arabs are honourable fellows, and may be trusted to stick to such understanding.
One point in which an Arab shows himself more of a gentleman than, say, the Germans in South-west Africa, is that he will never poison wells, even though he knows his enemy may use them.
True comradeship does not take any account of what the other fellow's position in life may be.
I remember that when I took a troop of Boy Scouts to Canada, they all worked in pairs during the whole of the trip, and one of these pairs consisted of two boys who were respectively the son of an Earl and the son of a sergeant in an infantry regiment. Yet, although they had been brought up on totally different lines, they were boys, they were Scouts, they were not snobs, and they were the best of pals.
And we see very much the same thing at the Front to-day, where, in the ranks of every battalion, are to be found men of every class and standing—
"Cook's son, duke's son, son of a belted earl!"