“A fountain of scented water—I could not name its odour precisely, but I guessed it to be Fior de Goyim—plashed gently into a basin of porphyry at the end of the apartment.
“Yusouff and two other guests (who alone had been asked to meet me), rose from the exceedingly costly rugs of Persia whereon they had reclined, and gravely saluted me. The master of the house, after the first salutations and an invocation upon my head of the Mercy of Allah, told me that the feast was ready prepared, but that before summoning it he would ask me to honour the house and survey what poor ornaments he might be able to show me.
“I was expressly delighted at his tone. It was that which I had already heard to be native to princes of commerce. He had already acquired, in the few years that had elapsed since he had cleaned the streets for a living, a well-bred restraint of gesture, and when he spoke it was in the tone of one who thought negligible the whole world, including his guest. I prayed fervently, as I accompanied the leisurely steps of my great entertainer, that when I should have achieved a similar fortune I should myself as quickly acquire this distinctive manner of the great. I watched him narrowly in order to imitate (when I should have left his presence) those peculiar little details which mark affluence and are of such service in negotiation. He would often interpose words of his own into the midst of another’s sentence. It pleased him not to answer some repeated question. He would change the conversation at his pleasure without too much regard for what I might have been saying immediately before. He also turned to another guest, while I was addressing him and in every way showed his superiority.
“When we had sat down to meat I was further edified by the varied information, the extensive culture of my host. He would lead the talk on to some subject which he had recently acquired from his numerous secretaries, and dally upon it at a length which would have been tedious in one of lesser station. But all this was done with such an air of money that it was impossible to feel the slightest tedium, though his minute description of things which we all knew by heart extended more than once to a full quarter of an hour.
“During the progress of this divine repast I noted with pleasure that the distinguished master of the house never once introduced the subject of my affairs.
“I would have you remember, my dear nephews,” said Mahmoud at this point, “that nothing is less pleasing in a merchant, especially in one of approved success, than the introduction of profit and loss at a meal; for profit and loss are of such profound importance that their mere mention must distract from the legitimate pleasures of the table.
“It was not until a late hour, when the two other guests (whose insignificant names I have not attempted to retain) had arisen to depart, that affairs began.
“With the subtle tact of commercial genius my host retained me, gripping my arm. I ventured in the absence of any witness to say a few words upon what was nearest my heart: I asked him ‘How were dates?’
“To my delight he proved affable. He unbent in a degree unworthy of so small an occasion and listened with the greatest attention to my simple tale. I told him frankly that I had with me at the moment but few camels (I was under no necessity to confess that I had not another asset in the world). I suggested by my negligent tone that such a number could hardly be called a caravan and was little more than a distraction with which I amused myself on my travels. I then dropped the fact that I had loaded them—more as a pastime than anything else—with a few dates.
“At this second mention of the word ‘dates’ the face of Yusouff-the-Blessed suddenly changed. He at first cast his eyes down in an expression of real concern. Then, looking up at me anxiously and steadily, he said: