"At six and three!"
"No, at six and four!" and the customer goes away.
"Send the man, it is thine," is hastily called after him, and in a few moments he returns with a Jewish porter, and pays his "six and three."
So our worthy trader does business all day, and seems to thrive on it. Occasionally a friend drops in to chat and not to buy, and now and then there is a beggar; here is one.
An aged crone she is, of most forbidding countenance, swathed in rags, it is a wonder she can keep together. She leans on a formidable staff, and in a piteous voice, "For the face of the Lord," and "In the name of my Lord Slave-of-the-Able" (Mulai Abd el Káder, a favourite saint), she begs something "For God." One copper suffices to induce her to call down untold blessings on the head of the donor, and she trudges away in the mud, barefooted, repeating her entreaties till they sound almost a wail, as she turns the next corner. But beggars who can be so easily disposed of at the rate of a hundred and ninety-five for a shilling can hardly be considered troublesome.
A respectable-looking man next walks in with[page 116] measured tread, and leaning towards us, says almost in a whisper—
"O Friend of the Prophet, is there anything to-day?"
"Nothing, O my master," is the courteously toned reply, for the beggar appears to be a shareef or noble, and with a "God bless thee," disappears.
A miserable wretch now turns up, and halfway across the yard begins to utter a whine which is speedily cut short by a curt "God help thee!" whereat the visitor turns on his heel and is gone.
With a confident bearing an untidy looking figure enters a moment later, and after due salaams inquires for a special kind of cloth.