“Thirsty?” said the Sheikh, smiling.
“Well, pretty tidy. I shall be worse soon. But if you come to that, I’ve been thirsty ever since I came to Egypt. I mean I feel as if I’d come down to a cheap circus, and we were going into a country town where the big tent had been set up, and that by and by we should be all riding round the ring doing Mazeppa and the Wild Horse, or Timour the Tartar; stalls a shilling covered with red cloth; gallery thruppence.”
The Sheikh stared wonderingly, and then shook his head.
“I do not understand, Mr Samuel,” he said.
“Of course you don’t, sir. How can you, seeing that you’ve picked up what you know by accident like, and not had a regular English education? There, it’s all right. It was only a growl, and I’m better now.”
“But you said you were ashamed of the Hakim.”
“I said so, but I ain’t, Mr Abrahams. He’s splendid ain’t he?”
“He is grand,” said the Sheikh earnestly. “His power, his knowledge—it is wonderful!”
“That’s right, old man, so it is.”
“And I hope when all the work is done, and we have taken Mr Frank’s—”