[228]. Said ironicè, a favourite figure of speech with the Fellah: the day began badly and threatened to end unluckily.
[229]. The penalty of Theft. See vol. i. [274].
[230]. This is the model of a courtly compliment; and it would still be admired wherever Arabs are not “frankified.”
[231]. Arab. “Shibábah;” Lane makes it a kind of reed-flageolet.
[232]. These lines occur in vol. i. [76]; I quote Mr. Payne.
[233]. The instinctive way of juggling with Heaven like our sanding the sugar and going to church.
[234]. Arab. “Yá Shukayr,” from Shakar, being red (clay etc.): Shukár is an anemone or a tulip and Shukayr is its dim. form. Lane’s Shaykh made it a dim. of “Ashkar” = tawny, ruddy (of complexion), so the former writes, “O Shukeyr.” Mr. Payne prefers “O Rosy cheeks.”
[235]. For “Sandal,” see vol. ii. [50]. Sandalí properly means an Eunuch clean rasé, but here Sandal is a P.N. = Sandal-wood.
[236]. Arab. “Yá mumátil,” one who retards payment.
[237]. Arab. “Kirsh al-Nukhál” = Guts of bran, a term little fitted for the handsome and distinguished Persian. But Khalifah is a Fellah-grazioso of normal assurance shrewd withal; he blunders like an Irishman of the last generation and he uses the first epithet that comes to his tongue. See Night dcccxliii. for the sudden change in Khalifah.