“To-morrow,” said Shukry, as I stropped the razor which the cook invited me to use, “you are coming to live with me.”
“To-morrow,” I answered, “I go to the Sea of Galilee.”
“Ah!” cried the three, in chorus, “Then we give you a letter to our good friend, Michael Yakoumy. He is teacher in Tiberias and he takes much pleasure to see you.”
“And you take a letter for my wife,” said Elias. “She is nurse in the hospital. Often I write but the government lose the letter.”
“So you’re married?” I observed, through the lather.
“No! no!” screamed the cook. “How you can come to my house if I am married? This only my—my—”
“Fiancée,” said Nehmé.
“Or sweetheart,” said Shukry.
“Aah!” muttered Elias, “I know the word ‘sweetheart.’ But I don’t like. How you call a woman sweet? Every woman bad, and if she live in Palestine or America, she cannot be trust”; and Nehmé and Shukry, in all the wisdom of seventeen years, nodded solemnly in approval.
“But your fiancée—” I began.