“There’s another Sheik in these parts, one Abraham O’Mara who goes around as if he cuts some didoes until he hears I’m in the neighborhood and then, Allah behold him bolt for his simoon cellar!
“Besides, he’ll soon be going back to Ireland or Palestine now and I’ll be taking over all his sandlots as well. So you can see for yourself what a grass-cutter I am.
“Don’t stand there shaking your sassy red curls at me or I’ll get up to you, do you understand?”
Verbeena gulped grandiloquently.
The Sheik sneered at her violently.
“See here,” he said, “you’d have made a fine chorus boy but it was not as a chorus boy or any other kind I saw you in Biscuit. So shake those Reginald fixings and get yourself into something with fancy trimmings, something decolleté and dashy. I’m surprised to find you so prone to forget that you are a lady.”
“In Biscuit—in Biscuit? You saw me in Biscuit, you underbred loafer?” gasped Verbeena.
“That cat you chased off the balcony fell on a brand new, very natty turban I was wearing as I passed the hotel.”
“It was then that I first saw you, cutey! And when I heard you were going to make a desert hike alone—well, here you are, little one, mon chit, hale and hearty if a bit high-strung, my sweet ukelele.”
“Love—love! You speak of love! ’Twas for a ransom you rifled me of my liberty and what not, you big, hulking rotter!”