The attitude towards commerce is as old as barter. I saw a neatly bearded woman, whose brown coat looked as though it was draped over a barrel, go up to a fishmonger, standing beside two gigantic codfish and a number of smaller fish.
"How much?" asked the woman, indicating a nice group of still life.
"Six shillings," replied the fishmonger, with a keen glance from small, black eyes.
"One and ten," remarked the woman, reflectively turning a plaice upside down and prodding it with a fat finger.
Whereupon a singular change took place in the fishmonger's aloof attitude. He was insulted, outraged. Suddenly, picking up a plaice by the tail, he said with a threatening gesture:
"I'll wipe it acrost yeh face!"
The customer was not outraged as a woman would have been in Oxford Street; she just shrugged her fat shoulders, as she would have done in Damascus, and moved away, knowing full well that before she had retreated very far she would be recalled—as she was. After a brisk argument she bought the fish for two and fourpence and they parted friends!
I have seen exactly the same drama played on a carpet in Alexandria.
* * *
What strange foreign eatables you see here: vile-looking messy dishes, anæmic cucumbers, queer salted meats, varied sausages of East European origin, the inevitable onion, and, of course, olives. Smoked salmon has customers at ten shillings a pound.