“‘Doubter’—sixpence; for slippers, sixpence.”
The Turkish penny was again offered, and again refused, with:
I stopped him and developed a new plan. The guide remained on the sidewalk, in front of the hotel, and in a quarter of an hour the “Doubter” opened his door, peered out cautiously to see that the coast was clear, and then took his way to the parlor. He seated himself before the fire, and I gave the signal, and just as he remarked, “I’m glad that awful man has gone,” the guide slipped in like the ghost of Banquo at Macbeth’s feast. Again he extended his hand, and again he said:
“‘Doubter’—sixpence.” “‘Doubter’—sixpence.”
And so it went on for two hours, and I think the old miser was appealed to on the average, about once a minute. Whenever the guide lagged we urged him forward, and as he had right on his side and sixpence in his eye, he worked with a will.
In vain did the “Doubter” order him away and appeal to the rest of us, to tell the guide to leave We made no interference, except to offer to lend the “Doubter” the sixpence, which he declined. The “Doubter” slammed the door in the guide’s face, who then gave up the pursuit. The old fellow surrendered. He borrowed a sixpence and paid the guide, and the rest of us gave the man a couple of francs for his persistence.
There was nothing now for us to do but to leave Jerusalem, and the next morning by ten o’clock we were set down at the door of the hotel at Jaffa, whence we had started nine days before. We paid oft our dragoman, and at his request wrote a certificate, setting forth that he had served us to our entire satisfaction, and that we were as contented with him as it would be possible to be with any dragoman. He suited us all, except the “Doubter,” who wouldn’t have been satisfied even if he had had the Sultan of Turkey for a dragoman. He tried to get a reduction on account of the kicking he received from one of the horses, and was much chagrined when the dragoman, at our suggestion, pretended to misunderstand him, and said he did not make any extra charge for things of that kind.