“What do the figures mean?” I asked.
“They form the word alf,” he replied.
“Alf? Somebody’s name!” I said, still laughing.
“In Arab it mean ten hundred,” he whispered.
“A thousand?”
“Yes—one thousand.”
“Well?”
Hassan returned the ornament to me, and his expression was so strange that I began to grow really annoyed. He was looking at me with a mingling of envy and compassion which I found to be quite insufferable.
“Hassan,” I said sternly, “you will tell me all you know about this matter. One would imagine that you suspected me of stealing the thing!”
“Ah, no, my gentleman!” he protested earnestly. “But I will tell you, yes, only you will not believe me.”