'That I will tell you afterwards. The need is instant.'
I produced the four mejîdis from a trouser-pocket, and, receiving them, he went back to the door by which the usher stood, and whispered to the man, who went inside a moment and came back with the private secretary of the Caïmmacâm. The compliments which passed between them seemed to me interminable.
I paced the pavement of the waiting-room, the only figure in the crowd whose attitude bespoke impatience. The others sat or squatted round the walls in perfect resignation, some of them smoking, others munching nuts of various kinds, of which the shells began to hide the floor adjacent to them. A few of the suppliants had even had the forethought to bring with them bags full of provisions, as if anticipating that their time of waiting might endure for several days.
At last, when I was growing really angry with him, Suleymân returned and told me:
'All is well, and we can now be going, if your Honour pleases.'
'I do please,' I rejoined indignantly. 'Why have you kept me waiting all this while? I never wished to come at all into this place, and Allah knows that we have done no good by coming. We have spoilt a morning which we might have spent upon the road.'
'Allah, Allah!' sighed Suleymân long-sufferingly. 'Your Honour is extremely hard to please. Did not his Excellency talk to you exclusively, with every sign of the most lively pleasure for quite half an hour; whereas he scarcely deigned to throw a word to me, although I wooed his ear with language calculated to seduce the mind of kings? I have some cause to be dejected at neglect from one so powerful; but you have every cause to be elated. He is now your friend.'
'I shall never see him in my life again most likely!' I objected.
'Nay, that you cannot tell,' replied my mentor suavely. 'To be acquainted with a person in authority is always well.'