When the last one was gone, and the process took up all of half-an-hour, he sat and looked down his nose at me for several minutes without speaking.  You could have guessed just as easily what an alligator was thinking about, and I tried to emulate him, pretending to go off into the brown study that the Turks call kaif, out of which it is considered bad manners to disturb your best friend, let alone a stranger.  But manners proved to be no barrier in his case.

He began talking to me in Arabic—­directly at me, slowly and deliberately, but I did not understand very much of it and it was not difficult to pretend I did not hear.  However, Suliman was in different case; the boy began to get very restless under the monolog, and I tugged at his back hair more than once to remind him of the part he had to play.

Discovering that the Arabic took no effect on me, the alligator person changed to French.

“They speak French in Damascus.  I know you are not deaf.  You are a spy.  I know your name.  I know what your business was before you came here.  I know why you want to see the staff-captain.  You have a letter for him; I know what is in it.  No use trying to deceive me; I have ways of my own of discovering things.  Do you know what happens to spies who refuse to answer my questions?  They are attended to.  Quite simple.  They receive attention.  Nobody hears of them again.

“There are drains in Jerusalem—­big, dark, smelly, ancient, full of rats—­very useful drains.  You think the Staff-Captain Ali Mirza will protect you.  At a word from me he will make the request that you receive immediate attention.  You will disappear down a drain, where even Allah will forget that you ever existed.  Staff-Captain Ali Mirza is my old friend.  Better let me see that letter.”

I felt like laughing at the drain threats although Suliman was still shivering from the effect of the earlier Arabic version.  But the statement that he knew the real Ali Mirza might be true, in which case Grim’s disguise was not going to last long.  However, the fact that he had not yet seen through my disguise was some comfort.  The wish being father of the thought, I decided he was bluffing first and last.  But he had not finished yet.  He tried me in English.

“The captain will give that letter to me in any case.  It is intended for me.  I have other business now, and wish to save time, so give it to me at once.  Here, I will give you ten piastres for it.”

He pulled out a purse and unfolded a ten-piastre note.  I took no notice.  He shook it for me to see, and I awoke like a pelican at the sight of fish.

“Yours for that letter,” he said, shaking it again.

I nudged Suliman and nodded to him.  He crossed the room, seized the ten-piastre note, and brought it back to me.  I stowed it away under my shirt.

“Come, now give me the letter.”

I took utterly no notice, so he turned his attention to Suliman again, and resumed in Arabic.