“Surely,” he cried, “it is none other than Saïd the nephew of Yûssuf Khalig! Es-selâm ’aleykûm, Saïd!”
“Aleykûm, es-selâm,” I replied, and stood there looking up at him.
“Would you perform a little service for me, Saïd?” he continued. “It will occupy you but an hour and you may earn five piastres.”
“Willingly,” I replied, not knowing to what the mistake of this evidently half-blind old man might lead me.
I entered the door and mounted the stairs to the room in which he was, to find that he lay upon a scantily covered dîwan by the open window.
“Praise be to Allah (whose name be exalted)!” he exclaimed, “that I am thus fortunately enabled to fulfil my obligations. I sometimes suffer from an old serpent bite, my son, and this morning it has obliged me to abstain from all movement. I am called Abdûl the Porter, of whom you will have heard your uncle speak; and although I have long retired from active labor myself, I contract for the supply of porters and carriers of all descriptions and for all purposes; conveying fair ladies to the hammám, youth to the bridal, and death to the grave. Now, it was written that you should arrive at this timely hour.”
I considered it highly probable that it was also written how I should shortly depart if this garrulous old man continued to inflict upon me details of his absurd career. However—
“I have a contract with the merchant, Mohammed er-Rahmân of the Sûk el-Attârin,” he continued, “which it has always been my custom personally to carry out.”
The words almost caused me to catch my breath; and my opinion of Abdul the Porter changed extraordinary. Truly my lucky star had guided my footsteps that morning!
“Do not misunderstand me,” he added. “I refer not to the transport of his wares to Suez, to Zagazig, to Mecca, to Aleppo, to Baghdad, Damascus, Kandahar, and Pekin; although the whole of these vast enterprises is entrusted to none other than the only son of my father: I speak, now, of the bearing of a small though heavy box from the great magazine and manufactory of Mohammed er-Rahmân at Shubra, to his shop in the Sûk el-Attârin, a matter which I have arranged for him on the eve of the Molid en-Nebi (birthday of the Prophet) for the past five-and-thirty years. Every one of my porters to whom I might entrust this special charge is otherwise employed; hence my observation that it was written how none other than yourself should pass beneath this window at a certain fortunate hour.”