d, you'll say I'll probably be back by tea."

Captain Kettle went off then in a shore-boat, past a small fleet of
pearling dhows, which rolled at their anchors, and after a long
pull--for the sea was shallow, and the anchorage lay five miles
out--stepped on to the back of a burly Arab, and was carried the last
mile dry-shod. Parallel to him were lines of men carrying out cargo to
the lighters which would tranship it to the _Parakeet_, and Kettle
looked upon these with a fine complacency.

His tramping for cargo had been phenomenally successful. He was filling
his holds at astonishingly heavy freights. And not only would this bring
him credit with his owners, which meant promotion in due course to a
larger ship, but in the mean time, as he drew his 2-1/2 per cent, on the
profits, it represented a very comfortable matter of solid cash for that
much-needing person himself. He hugged himself with pleasure when he
thought of this new found prosperity. It represented so many things
which he would be able to do for his wife and family, which through so
many years narrow circumstances had made impossible.

The burly Arab on whose hips he rode pick-a-back stepped out of the
water at last, and Kettle jumped down from his perch, and picked his
way daintily among the litter of the foreshore toward the white houses
of the town which lay beyond.

It was the first time he had set foot there. So great was his luck at
the time, that he had not been forced to go ashore in the usual way
drumming up cargo. The shippers had come off begging him to become their
carrier, and he had muleted them in heavy freights accordingly. So he
stepped into the town with many of the feelings of a conqueror, and
demanded to be led to the office of a man with whom he had done
profitable business that very morning.

Of course, "office" in the Western meaning of the term there was none.
The worthy Rad el Moussa transacted affairs on the floor of his general
sitting-room, and stored his merchandise in the bed-chambers, or
wherever it would be out of reach of pilfering fingers. But he received
the little sailor with fine protestations of regard, and (after some
giggles and shuffling as the women withdrew) inducted him to the dark
interior of his house, and set before him delicious coffee and some
doubtful sweetmeats.

Kettle knew enough about Oriental etiquette not to introduce the matter
on which he had come at the outset of the conversation. He passed an