Suddenly a voice sounded above the roar:—“Heh! Landsmann, wohin?” I stared eagerly about me, for this simple greeting, properly accented, is the password of the German tramp wherever he wanders. Under a neighboring arc-light stood a young man of ruddy, sunburned countenance, in a stout, if somewhat ragged, suit and a cloth cap. At my sign of recognition, he dived into the crowd and fought his way to my side.
“Ah!” he shouted, in German, “I knew only one of the boys would blow in with a knapsack and a corduroy suit! Where are you turning up from? Just got in from Zagazig myself. Been down there grubbing up some cash. How long have you been away? Business any good down at the coast? Don’t believe it is. Cairo’s the place for easy winnings. Bet you blew in without a piastre? Give ’em the stony face on the train? I did, though a fellow down in Zagazig ticketed me. Gave me the cash, the wise one, and of course I planted it and stared them off.”
Had I not already served an apprenticeship in German slang, I should have come off with a very indistinct notion of the recent activities of my new acquaintance. I broke in as soon as possible to assure him that I had never dared to hope that civilization was so up-to-date in Egypt that one could “beat his way” on the railroads, and to protest that I could doubly deny his charge of having “eingeblasen” without a piastre.
“It’s my first trip to Cairo,” I concluded. “I bought my own ticket—”
“What!” roared the German, “Ticketed yourself! Lieber Gott, aber du bist roh! Tick—But then,” he continued, in a hushed voice, “now I think of it, so did I! Schafskopf, ja! I paid good money to come to Cairo the first time! Höllespein, what a greenhorn I was!”
As he talked, we had left behind the howling throng. No need to ask where he was leading me.
“There’s an Asile in Cairo,” he put in, “but you’re too late to-night. You’ll meet all die Kamaraden where we’re going, for they’re most of them ausgespielt with the churchman and can’t talk the Asile tickets out of him.”
We crossed a rectangular square where street cars clanged their way through a multitude, and turned down a street flanked by brightly-lighted shops.
A winged dahabiyeh of the Nile