again. He could not tell the hour by a clock, but
he knew to a second when the first of the seething mass of humans
asleep on the beds and floors and stairs of the packed houses would
yawn, rub the sleep from their eyes and stumble, shivering, into the
street. He had still his greatest treasure to bring, and had no wish
to be caught with it on his back; not because of the criminality of his
proceedings--that never once entered his thick skull--but because he
was scared of having the mirror reft from him. He was almost devoid of
brain, but had a certain animal instinct which served him in good stead
and which, in this instance, urged him to keep his part in the history
of the past evening to himself. He picked up the full-length mirror as
though it had been a small picture, and stood for an instant grinning
cheerfully, looking round the room in which his mistress had so often
kicked and threatened him.

Then he gave a little click at the back of his throat, placed the
mirror on the floor and stole across the Persian carpet of an unknown
antiquity and value to a painted deal writing desk which had once
reposed in a shop window in Westbourne Grove; and which, on account of
its little drawers and little cupboards with painted doors, had given
intense joy to the woman whose wealth in hard cash in the bank and
jewels in the safe was almost incredible. He lifted the slanting lid,
moved a bundle of papers fastened by an elastic band, and pulled out a
drawer out of which be took a cheque-book.

He had no idea of the real use of the book with the buff cover and pale
pink leaves, but he knew that you had only to make certain black marks
on one of the pink leaves and take it to the big house in the Sharia
Clot Bey with its fierce man standing in front of the door and money
would be given in exchange.

On account of his cunning, his stolidity, his mighty muscle and
ferocious appearance Qatim had been made bank-messenger in chief to the
House of Zulannah, and had often stood at his mistress's side when she
had taken the cheque-book from the drawer and made strange black marks
on one of the pink leaves. True, he had rolled his eyes and shown his
teeth fiercely many a time at the interpreter who had had to be called
to explain that, although he had handed a pink leaf through the bars,
there was no money forthcoming; but as his mistress had not struck him
for returning empty-handed he had resigned himself at last to the
strange