ation beckons you!

Once Fred starts there is no stopping him, short of personal violence,
and he ran through his ever lengthening list of songs, not all quite
printable, until the very coral walls ached with the concertina's
wailing, and our throats were hoarse from ridiculous choruses. As
Yerkes put it:

"When pa says sing, the rest of us sing too or go crazy!"

I went to the window and tried to get a view of shipping through the
mango branches. Masts and sails--lateen spars particularly--always get
me by the throat and make me happy for a while. But all I could see
was a low wall beyond the little compound, and over the top of it
headgear of nearly all the kinds there are. (Zanzibar is a wonderful
market for second-hand clothes. There was even a tall silk hat of not
very ancient pattern.)

"Come and look, Monty!" said I, and he and Yerkes came and stood beside
me. Seeing his troubadour charm was broken, Fred snapped the catch on
the concertina and came too.

"Arabian Nights!" he exclaimed, thumping Monty on the back.

"Didums, you drunkard, we're dead and in another world! Juma is the
one-eyed Calender! Look--fishermen--houris--how many houris?--seen 'em
grin!--soldiers of fortune--merchants--sailors--by gad, there's Sindbad
himself!--and say! If that isn't the Sultan Haroun-al-Raschid in
disguise I'm willing to eat beans and pie for breakfast to oblige
Yerkes! Look--look at the fat ruffian's stomach and swagger, will you?"

Yerkes sized up the situation quickest.

"Sing him another song, Fred. If we want to strike up acquaintance
with half Zanzibar, here's our chance!"

"Oh, Richard, oh, my king!" hummed Monty. "It's Coeur de Lion and
Blondell over again with the harp reversed."

If Zanzibar may be said to possess main thoroughfares, that window of
ours commanded as much of one as the tree and wall permitted; and
music--even of a concertina--is the key to the heart of all people
whose hair is crisp and kinky. Perhaps rather owing to the generosity
of their slave law, and Koran teachings, more than to racial depravity,
there are not very many Arabs left in that part of the world with true
semitic features and straight hair, nor many woolly-headed folk who are
quite all-Bantu. There is enough Arab blood in all of them to make
them bold; Bantu enough for syncopated, rag-time music to take them by
the toes and stir them. The crowd in the street grew, and gathered
until a policeman in red fez a