in that respect, and usually seeks to
turn its virtue into capital. But in a land where, as old King
Solomon, who knew his crowd, remarked, "All men are liars," you
must have some sort of weathervane by which to guide your
national optimism, so I settled on that one long ago.

Ali Baba had said there was a bad stink in the camel stables. A
natural expert in hyperbole, he had not exaggerated in the least.
And he had said that they were good camels; it was true. You did
not need to be a camel expert to know those great long-legged
Syrian beasts for winners. They looked like the first pick of a
whole country-side, as he maintained they were--twenty-five of
them in one string, representing an investment at after-war
prices of the equivalent of five or six thousand U.S. dollars.

"Who has been looted to pay for these?" asked Grim.

"Allah! You have put an end to our proper business, Jimgrim. What
could we do? We took our money and bought these camels, thinking
to take a hand in the caravan trade."

Grim looked into the old rogue's eyes and laughed.

"In the land I come from," he said, "a capitalist with your
predatory instincts would pay a lawyer by the year to tell him
just how far he could safely go!"

"A _wakil?"_ sneered Ali Baba. "The _wakils_ are all scoundrels.
May Allah grind their bones! No honest man can have the advantage
of such people."

Grim looked the loads over, but there was nothing that any one
could teach that gang about desert work. The goat-skin water-bags
were newly patched and moist; the gear was all in good shape,
none new, but all well-tested; and there was food enough in
double sacks for twenty men for a month. Mujrim, Ali Baba's giant
oldest son, picked up the loads and turned them over for Grim
to examine with about as much apparent effort as if he were
tossing pillows.

Presently Grim laughed again, and looked at the line of fifteen
other sons and grandsons, all squatting in the shadow of the wall
watching us.

"Which is the chief Lothario?" he asked; only he used a much more
expressive word than that, because the East is frank where the
West deals in innuendo, and vice versa.

"They are all grown men," said Ali Baba. "There's a woman named
Ayisha--a Badawi (Bedouin)--who has lately come from El-Maan with
a caravan of wheat merchants."

"How did you know that, Jimgrim?"

"I'm told she has been buying things in the _suk_* that no Badawi
could have use for, and has sent to Jerusal