"Well, what's tickling you so, pasha?"
The voice was drawling, and quite gentle; but at the sound of it, Higli's laugh stopped short, and the muscles of his face contracted. If there was one man of whom he had a wholesome fear—why, he could not tell—it was this round-faced, abrupt, imperturbable American, Claridge Pasha's right-hand man. Legends of resourcefulness and bravery had gathered round his name. "Who's been stroking your chin with a feather, pasha?" he continued, his eye piercing the other like a gimlet.
"It was an amusing tale I heard at Assiout, effendi," was Higli's abashed and surly reply.
"Oh, at Assiout!" rejoined Lacey. "Yes, they tell funny stories at
Assiout. And when were you at Assiout, pasha?"
"Two days ago, effendi."
"And so you thought you'd tell the funny little story to Nahoum as quick as could be, eh? He likes funny stories, same as you—damn, nice, funny little stories, eh?"
There was something chilly in Lacey's voice now, which Higli did not like; something much too menacing and contemptuous for a mere man-of-all- work to the Inglesi. Higli bridled up, his eyes glared sulkily.
"It is but my own business if I laugh or if I curse, effendi," he replied, his hand shaking a little on the stem of the narghileh.
"Precisely, my diaphanous polyandrist; but it isn't quite your own affair what you laugh at—not if I know it!"
"Does the effendi think I was laughing at him?"