"What is it I hear?"

"Are you Khanji Abdullah?"

"Ahi!"--a sleepy drawl that meant nothing.

"A curse on the deaf one!"

"Am I deaf, or to be cursed, or do I hear the ugly voice of a camel-driver?" asked the innkeeper artlessly.

"Where is Khanji Abdullah?"

"Who?"

"Khanji Abdullah-ah-ah!" yelled the voice, prolonging the name.

"Why do you wake honest sleepers, you dog of a dogson?"

"I wake folk? I wake folk? Have I the voice of an old dromedary? Have I the voice----"