“How much?” asked Dimoussi, producing his pistol, but loth to let it go.
The shopman looked at Dimoussi, and looked at the pistol. Then he tossed it carelessly behind him into the litter of his booth.
“It is no good. As sure as my name is Mustapha, it would not kill a rabbit. But see! My heart is kind. I will give you three dollars.”
He counted them out. Dimoussi stolidly shook his head. “Seven,” said he.
Mustapha reached behind him for the pistol, and flung it down at Dimoussi’s feet.
“Take it away!” said he. “I will not haggle with foolish boys who have stolen a thing of no value, and wish to sell it at a great price. Take it away! Yet, out of my charity, I will give you four dollars.”
“Five,” said Dimoussi.
And five he received.
He bought rice and eggs in the market, and turned under an old archway of green tiles into the Fondak Henna. There he cooked his food at a fire, ate, and proposed to sleep.
But Fate had laid her hand upon Dimoussi. He slept not at all that night. He sat with his back propped against the filigree plaster of one of the pillars, and listened to a Moor of the Sherarda tribe, who smoked keef and talked until morning.