A little talk about dervishry
The Dervish said something she didn't quite understand about not talking shop on social occasions. "However," he added, "I will be glad to tell about my neighbors; that will be more polite." This suited Miss Muffet just as well.
"It's what I really want to hear about," she said. "Dervishry must be very hard work when you do it well, but it gives you a chance to meet all the interesting people. Let me see; you have a bowl, and you sit under a palm-tree by a well, and then the Calendars and Cadis and Muftis and Merchants and Mendicants and the ladies of Bagdad come and ask you questions, and when they put things in your bowl you answer them?"
The Dervish said that that would be against the rule.
"Oh, I remember. You look wise and tell them to come again to-morrow. The next day they come again, and you tell them which camel was blind in one eye and where their lovers are. That is very wonderful."
The Dervish said that was the easiest part of it. The hardest thing was to look wiser than the Muftis.
An expressive glance at the executioner