Bedr gave me no time to speak. He rushed forward to greet me with effusion, as if I were a long-lost and well-loved patron. "I bin so glad see you again after these days, milord. Sure!" he began. "Antoun Effendi, he tell you I come here on purpose to do you good. I find out those genlemens very wicked men, so I leave them quick. They want to pay me for go back with them, but no money big enough now I know they try to do harm to my nice young lady. She wasn't so good to me as the other nice young lady, but that makes no matter. I not stand for any hurt to her, sure I will not, milord."
"The meaning of this rigmarole," Anthony cut him short, speaking in German (which he knew I understood and trusted Bedr didn't) "is, that the fellow wants us to buy information from him. He pretends to have broken with his employers on our account (though his explanation of getting here to Halfa on their dahabeah is ridiculous) and that, having come for our benefit against their wishes, he's without pay, penniless, and stranded."
"A lie of course," I took for granted, also in German.
"The part about being broke—certainly. But it's certain, too, that he must know some things we'd like to know."
"Could we trust a word he says?"
"No, as far as his moral sense is concerned. But my idea is to bargain with him. We to pay according to value received. That might be bait for a fish worth hooking."
"Yes, that's our line. We haven't much time to hear and digest his story, though. The train will start in less than an hour."
"We shan't waste a minute. Without waiting for you, I began to bargain on the line I've just suggested."
"How far did you get?"
"A good way, for I was able to scare him a bit. You see, he earns his living in Cairo, and I've persuaded him that I have some influence there, in quarters that can make or break him. He hasn't much more time to spare than we have, if it's true that he wants to start back on the government boat. You know they take natives, third class. My suggestion, subject to your approval, is this: in any case we give a thousand piasters, ten pounds. But if what he can tell us is of real use or even interest, we rise to the extent of ten times that sum."