“I have no doubt you will hurt me more than Mrs Arab would, doctor; but then you would cure me, you know, and she wouldn’t.”
“Never mind that cheeky boy, MacBean,” said Fitzgerald. “Why won’t they fight now?”
“Because they have sent all their women and boys away, and that, the friendly natives say, is a sure sign.”
“Curious; it is just the other way on with other savage people, who send their families off when they do mean to fight.”
“But the Arabs are only half savages; and besides they are quite unlike other people. Why, their lucky day is Friday, and their unlucky day Wednesday.”
“Yes,” said Tom Strachan, “and Robinson Crusoe called his savage Friday, and these fellows calls their Prophet Tuesday.”
“Tuesday! What do you mean?” asked Major Elmfoot.
“Mardi is the French for Tuesday, is it not, sir?”
“Strachan, you are really too bad, to make such execrable puns in the middle of the desert.”
“That is it, sir? I thought even my poor flowers of speech might be welcome in such a barren waste!”