the added trade that
conceivably might be expected to accrue through the advertisement
obtained by serving such an exalted customer. The tax-gatherer
also threatened the bastinado; and as the man who likes that
punishment, or who could soften the heart of a Turkish tax
assessor, has yet to be discovered, Yussuf invariably paid.

But when Allenby conquered Palestine between bouts of trying to
tame his Australians, and Djemal Pasha scooted hot-foot into
exile with a two-hundred-woman harem packed in lorries at his
rear, Yussuf remembered that old adage about better late than
never. He put Djemal's name on the stone arch of the narrow door
near the foot of David Street. He did it partly out of the
disrespect that a small dog feels for a big one that is now on
chain; but he was not overlooking the business value of it.

The first result was that he did quite a lot of trade with
British officers, who came primarily because they were sick of
eating sand and bully-beef, and drinking sand and tepid water in
the desert. Later they flocked there by way of paying indirect
homage to a governor who, whatever his obvious demerits, had at
any rate never been answered back or thwarted with impunity.
(There was a time, after the capture of Jerusalem, when if the
British army could have voted on it, Djemal Pasha would have been
brought back and given a free hand.)

But the officers began to discover that Yussuf was charging them
four or five times the proper price. The seniors objected
promptly, and deserted, to the inexpressible delight of the
subalterns; but even the under-paid extravagant youths grew
tired of extortion after a month or two, and Yussuf had to look
elsewhere for customers.

Yussuf did some thinking behind that genial Turkish mask of his.
Competition was keen. There are more coffee shops in Jerusalem
than hairs on a hog's back, and the situation, down near the
bottom of that narrow thoroughfare in the shadow of an ancient
arch, did not lend itself to drawing crowds.

But there were others in Jerusalem besides the British officers
who yearned for Djemal's rule again; and, unlike the irreverent
men in khaki, they did not dare to voice their feelings in
public. All the old political grafters, and all the would-be new
ones savagely resented a regime under which bribery was not
permitted; and, as always happens sooner or later, they began to
show a tendency to meet in certain places, where they might talk