But Lord, he had caught a Tartar!  Outside at the end of the corridor, in full view, but out of earshot, of Narayan Singh, Yussuf Dakmar made a proposal to Jeremy that was almost perfect in its naive obliquity.  There was nothing original or even unusual about it, except the circumstances, time and place.  Green-goods men and blue-sky stock salesmen, race-course touts and sure-thing politicians get away with the same proposition in the U.S. every day of the week, and pocket millions by it.  Only, just as happens to all such gentry on occasion, Yussuf Dakmar had the wrong fish in his net.

He jerked his head toward where Narayan Singh sat stolid and sleepy-looking on a camp-stool with his curly black beard resting on the heel of one hand.

“Do you know that man?” he asked.

“Wallah!  How should I know him?” Jeremy answered.  “He looks like a Hindu thinking of reincarnation.  Inshallah, he will turn into a tiger presently!”

“Beware of him!  He is an Administration spy.  He is watching me talk to you, and perhaps he will ask you afterward what I have said.  You must be very careful how you answer him.”

“I will tell him you asked me for a love-potion for the engine-driver’s wife,” Jeremy answered.

“I am listening.  What is it you are really going to say?”

“That master of yours—­that Ramsden, who dismissed you so tyrannically just now—­”

“That drunkard?  There is nothing interesting to be said about him,” Jeremy answered.  “He is a fool who has paid my fare as far as Damascus.  May Allah reward him for it!”

“Are you telling me the truth?” demanded Yussuf Dakmar, fixing his eyes sternly on Jeremy’s.

Your con man never overlooks a chance to put his intended victim on the defensive at an early stage in the proceedings.  “How can he have paid your fare as far as Damascus?  This line only goes to Haifa, where you have to change trains and buy another ticket.”

“I see you are a clever devil,” Jeremy retorted.  “May Allah give you a belly ache, if that is where you keep your brains!  It was I who bought the tickets.  The fool gave me sufficient money for three first-class fares all the way to Damascus, and I have the change.  He forgot that when he dismissed me.”

“Then you won’t need to beg board and lodging in Haifa?”

“Oh, yes.  I need my money for another matter.  It is high time I married, and a fellow without money has to put up with any toothless

that nobody else will take.”

“So you hope to find a wife in Damascus?”

“Inshallah,” Jeremy answered piously.

“Well, I will find you a good-looking girl for wife, provided you first prove that you will make a good son-in-law.  I take men as I find them, not as they represent themselves.  He who wishes for the fire must first chop wood.  You understand me?”

“Wallah!  I can chop wood like an axe with two heads.  Is the woman your daughter?”