. The man I'm looking for is taller
than you--very dark--looks, walks, speaks and acts like a
Bedouin. I saw him this afternoon in Bedouin costume in the
American Colony store."

"Yes, I noticed you. Sit down, won't you? Yes, I'm he--the
Bedouin abayi* seems to add to a man's height. Soap and water
account for the rest of it. These cigars are from the States."
[*Long-sleeved outer cloak.]

It was hard to believe, even on the strength of his straight
statement--he talking undisguised American, and smiling at me, no
doubt vastly pleased with my incredulity.

"Are you a case of Jekyll and Hyde?" I asked.

"No. I'm more like both sides of a sandwich with some army mule-
meat in the middle. But I won't be interviewed. I hate it.
Besides, it's against the regulations."

His voice was not quite so harshly nasal as those of the Middle
West, but he had not picked up the ultra-English drawl and
clipped-off consonants that so many Americans affect abroad
and overdo.

I don't think a wise crook would have chosen him as a subject for
experiments. He had dark eyes with noticeably long lashes;
heavy eyebrows; what the army examination-sheets describe as a
medium chin; rather large hands with long, straight fingers;
and feet such as an athlete stands on, fully big for his size,
but well shaped. He was young for a major--somewhere between
thirty and thirty-five.

Once he was satisfied that I would not write him up for the
newspapers he showed no disinclination to talk, although it was
difficult to keep him on the subject of himself, and easy to let
him lose you in a maze of tribal history. He seemed to know the
ins and outs of every blood-feud from Beersheba to Damascus, and
warmed to his subject as you listened.

"You see," he said, by way of apology when I laughed at a string
of names that to me conjured up only confusion, "my beat is all
the way from Cairo to Aleppo--both sides of the Jordan. I'm not
on the regular strength, but attached to the Intelligence--no,
not permanent--don't know what the future has in store--that
probably depends on whether or not the Zionists get full control,
and how soon. Meanwhile, I'm my own boss more or less--report
direct to the Administrator, and he's one of those men who allows
you lots of scope."

That was the sort of occasional glimpse he gave of himself, and
then switched off into straight statements about the Zionist
problem. All his statements were unqualified, a