El Kobir was wealthy; he sold his goods to the travellers who came to Sidi-bel-Abbès and to well-to-do inhabitants of the town, but his export trade was his stand-by. He had a shop in Vienna managed by his brother, and correspondents in London and Paris. With the very same hand with which now he was repairing a defect in the rose-coloured rug on his knees he could, without feeling the loss, have written you a very large cheque on the Crédit Lyonnais; white-bearded and fragile-looking, he had, yet, made the pilgrimage to Mecca for the second time only a year ago.
El Kobir bowed to Karasloff without rising, wished him good evening, and, turning his head, called out something in Arabic as though he were addressing some person in the back premises.
Karasloff introduced Jacques, they sat down, and whilst they were talking a curtain moved aside and a little boy of eight years or so appeared, glanced at Jacques, and then ran up to Karasloff, who put his arm round him.
"This is Ivan," said Karasloff. "He is my son. Ivan, this is my very good friend, Corporal Jacques—give him your hand."
Ivan held out his little hand, which Jacques took in his hard and horny fist. He was a pretty child, delicate-looking, and dark-eyed, dressed in the European style with the exception of a fez, which he wore as if born to it. Having shaken hands with Jacques, he took shelter again with his father, and the talk interrupted by his entrance went on.
Coffee was brought in by an Arab woman, and cigarettes. El Kobir talked about business and how Sidi-bel-Abbès was falling off in foreign visitors, and Jacques, set going by the coffee and the general atmosphere of mild festivity, talked of the Legion and its desperate adventures, not excluding his own.
Whatever the secret of personality may be that attracts children to grown-up people, Jacques must have possessed it, for in half an hour Ivan was sitting on his knee listening to his wild tales, enraptured and worshipping.
Karasloff looked on, pleased and rather astonished, whilst El Kobir, almost as much of a child as Ivan, listened also to Jacques telling of the great fight down by the Oasis of the Five Palms, of how the water gave out and of how he, Jacques, had fought hand to hand with the chief of the insurgent Arabs and spitted him like this—see——!
When it was time to return to barracks, Jacques and Karasloff walked off, the former promising to come again soon.
"So you see," said Karasloff, when they were in the street, "that is how I have been spending my evenings; better than in a café, eh?"