"I am no nigger!" he cried. "I'm the Sultan Casim Ammeh."
"I don't care a damn who you are so long as you keep your black paws off me!"
The youth's hands were not black, but deeply bronzed like his face, which looked darker than it really was against the whiteness of his hood.
"Take back that word," he said savagely, "or, by Allah, it shall be wiped out in blood!"
He drew his knife. The girls screamed. Excited waiters rushed towards the table. The mixed company stopped dancing and pressed forward to watch what looked like the beginning of a royal row. Such incidents were by no means unusual in the cabaret.
Only the Englishman remained calm. He grasped his opponent's wrist quickly.
"No, you don't," he said. "You damned niggers seem to think you own the world nowadays."
There was a brief scuffle. But the Englishman was big and heavy, and half a dozen waiters were hanging on to the enraged and insulted youth. His knife was wrested from his hand. He was hustled this way and that; and, finally, worsted and smouldering, he retired, to be led to another and more distant table by his female companion.
The episode was over in a couple of minutes. Disappointed at the lack of bloodshed, the spectators returned to their dancing. Relieved, the waiters went back to their various spheres. The Englishman seated himself again as if nothing had happened. At a distant table the youth sat and glowered at him.
"Who is that man?" he asked presently, pointing a lean forefinger at his late opponent.