"I?" The young man placed a hand of scorn upon his breast. "Hadji Abdul Hakkim ben Salazar? I am Saudi, and a Hadj besides. Say, Joe, have you got an American cigarette?"
"A great deal better than that," Colonel Glinka said, proffering an ornate golden cigarette case. "Try one of these, my boy."
Abdul Hakkim ben Salazar took two, sniffing them suspiciously. "They are very brown," he said.
Less critically, Colonel Glinka lighted one for himself. "You know," he said, "I was rather hoping that you might direct me to the house of a very old friend of mine."
"What handle?"
"I cannot tell you what name he is presently affecting, but he is a small, crooked man with a heavy black beard—or, at any rate, he once had such a beard. I know that he is somewhere on this island; therefore it will be useless for you to lie to me."
"Ah, that is the Sidi Doctor Stephens," Abdul said, puffing not too happily upon his cigarette. "His is the only house upon this island; also, I am his flunky and so I ought to know."
"'Stephens' will do," said Colonel Glinka, thwacking him smartly with the Malacca cane. "Lead on. And you may dispense with the gutter American dialect. I am not American, and besides I speak Arabic fluently."
"But I not so well," Abdul said, "for I was raised in the Kuwait oil-fields."
"By whom? A camel breeder?"