ccadilly; in the latter, rather fairer
than the average Afghan and Pathan loafer in Abdul Rehman Bazaar.

"Walking down Unter den Linden in Berlin, with upturned moustache, he
looked a most Teutonic German.

"You observed, my friend?" queried the Leading Gentleman (whose father
was the son of a Negro-Arab who married, or should have married, a
Jewess captured near Fez, and whose mother was the daughter of a
Tunisian Turk by a half-bred Negress of Timbuctoo).

"I observed," replied the fair young man in the mongrel Arabic-Swahili
_lingua franca_ of the Red Sea and East African littorals "that it is
but natural for dogs to prey upon dogs."

"There are times when the lion is driven to prey upon dogs, my dear
son," interposed the mild-eyed, benevolent-looking Arab--a pensive smile
on his venerable face.

"Yes--when he is old, mangy, toothless and deserving of nothing better,
my dear father," replied the fair young man, and his glances at the
white beard, scanty locks and mumbling mouth of the ancient gentleman
had an unpleasantly personal quality. To the casual on-looker it would
have seemed that an impudent boy deliberately insulted a harmless
benevolent old gentleman. To the fair young man, however, it was well
known that the old gentleman's name was famous across Northern and
Eastern Africa for monstrous villainy and fiendish cruelty--the name of
the worst and wickedest of those traders in "black ivory," one of whose
side-lines is frequently gun-running. Also he knew that the
benevolent-looking old dear was desirous that the Leading Gentleman, his
partner, should join with him in a little scheme (a scheme revealed by
one Moussa Isa, eaves-dropper) to give the fair young man some inches
of steel instead of the pounds of Teutonic gold due for services (and
rifles) rendered, when they should reach the quiet spot on the northern
shore of the Persian Gulf where certain bold caravan-leaders would await
them and their precious cargo--a scheme condemned by the Leading
Gentleman on the grounds of the folly of killing the goose that laid the
golden eggs. But then the wealthy Arab patriarch was retiring from the
risky business (already nearly ruined and destroyed by English
gun-boats) after that trip, and the Leading Gentleman was not. Thus it
was that the attitude of the fair young man toward Sheikh Abou ben
Mustapha Muscati did not display that degree of respect that his grey
hairs and beautiful old face would appear to dese