"It's a very old and, among Easterns, very famous resort of smokers of hashish. You notice the blackened walls, the want of light. The hashish smoker does not desire any luxury or brightness. He wants his dream, and he gets it here. You would scarcely suppose it, but there are rich Egyptians of the upper classes, men who are seen at official receptions, who go to the great balls at the smart hotels, and who slink in here secretly night after night, mingle with the lowest riff-raff, to have their dream beneath this blackened roof. There is one coming in now."
As he spoke, Mahmoud Baroudi appeared in the doorway. He was dressed in native costume—very poorly dressed; wore a dingy turban, and a long gibbeh of discoloured cloth. With the usual salaam, muttered in his throat, he went into the farthest and darkest corner of the café and squatted down on the floor. The old Arab carried to him in a moment a gozeh, a pipe resembling a nargeeleh, but without the snake-like handle. Baroudi took it for a moment, inhaled the smoke of the hashish, and poured it out from his mouth and nostrils.
"He looks like a poor Egyptian," said Isaacson, almost in a whisper.
"He is a millionaire. By the way, didn't you see him this afternoon?"
"Where?"
"At Shepheard's. He drove up just before I saw you in a phaeton."
"The man with the Russian horses! Surely, it's impossible!"
"This afternoon he was the cosmopolitan millionaire. To-night he sinks down into his native East."
"Who is he?"
"Mahmoud Baroudi."