The man lifted his shoulders in deprecation and darted a suspicious glance towards the crowd which had already closed upon the djelab of brown.
"Some desert dog," he answered sullenly. "But indeed Sidi Jan encourages all the rabble of the Sôk to take these liberties. He smiles, and the jackals think they have license to smile back."
The object of these reproaches thrust the carnation carelessly behind his own small ear.
"I have seen him before—once, twice, many times," he explained. "He laughs; he is not gray and dull like Selim. I would like to have him for my kavass."
"I drown in perspiration three shirts a day while I wait on thee," affirmed the fat man reproachfully. "Is this thy gratitude?"
"I do not wish to be waited on; I wish to be played with," said the child. "I should like to go to the sands where the Kaid's horses are galloped, and play with the brown man. We would paddle and I would throw the water over him. He has promised me this."
The girl started and gave a convulsive little grip of the fingers which lay in hers.
"He has spoken to you?" she cried. "When—where?"
The boy nodded his yellow mop of hair importantly.
"Yesterday as I rode through the Sôk," he answered. "He walked beside my donkey and told me that I was a horseman already made, and should be on the back of a black barb like Sid' Abdullah's. Then I, too, could race upon the sands."