“Feel in his pocket and find the letter.”

“I’m afraid,” the boy answered.

“Of what?  Of him?  I will protect you.  Take the letter from him.”

Suliman chose to play the small boy, as he could very well indeed when nothing could be gained by being devilish and ultra-grown-up.  He shook his head and grinned sheepishly.

“Has he any weapons?” was the next question.

“Ma indi khabar.” [I don’t know.]

Evidently assault and battery was to be the next item on the program.  He had not the eyes or the general air of a man who will part with ten piastres for nothing.  He called to Yussuf, who came hurrying out of the scullery place.  They held a whispered conference, and Yussuf nodded; then he came over to the front door and locked it, removing the key.

“Tell him to hand over that letter!” he ordered Suliman.

“Mafish mukhkh!” said the boy, tapping his forehead once more.

Suliman’s notion was the right one after all—­at any rate the only one available.  Old alligator rolled off his perch and started for me.  Yussuf timed his own assault to correspond.  They would have landed on me simultaneously, if Suliman had not reminded me that madness is a safe passport nearly anywhere in the East.

So I went stark, raving mad that minute.  I once spent a night in the room of an epileptic who had delirium tremens, and learned a lot from him; some of it came to mind just when I needed it.  If ever a man got ten piastres’ worth of unexpected side-show it was that old Syrian with the alligator eyes.  By the time I was quite out of breath there wasn’t a cushion or a coffee-pot fit for business.  Suliman was standing out of reach on the bench in a corner yelling with laughter, while the two men struggled to get through the scullery door, which was too narrow to admit them both at once.  I earned that ten piastres.  By the same token I did not let the kaffiyi fall off my head and betray my western origin.

Unable to think up any more original motions, and having breath for none, I sat on the floor and spat repeatedly, having seen a madman do that on the Hebron Road and get feared, if not respected for it.  There seems to be a theory prevalent in that part of the world that the sputum of a madman is contagious.

But I overdid it.  Most amateurs do overdo things.

They got so afraid that they decided to put me out into the street at all costs, where those enemies of society, the police, might demonstrate their ingenuity.  Yussuf made a dash for the front door, and I suppose he would have called in help and ended my share in the adventure, if something had not happened.

The “something” was Noureddin Ali very much something in his own opinion.

“Why didn’t you open the door sooner?” he demanded.  “I have been knocking for two minutes.”