“Ready to tell any kind of a lie for you, eh?”

“No, sir, always telling truth!  You got a cook yet?”

“Can you cook?” Fred answered guardedly.

“Yes, sah.  Was cook formerly for Master Stanley, go with him on expedition.  Later his boy.  Later his headman.  You want to go on expedition, I getting you good cook.  Where you want to go?”

“Are you looking for a job?” asked Fred.

“What you after?  Ivory?”

“Maybe.”

“I know all about ivory—­I shoot, trade ivory along o’ Tippoo Tib an’ Stanley.  You engage my services, all very well.”

“Go and tell Tippoo Tib we want to see him.  If he confirms what you say, perhaps we’ll take you on,” said Fred.

“Tell Tippoo Tib?  Ha-ha!  You want to find his buried ivory—­that it?  All white men wanting that!  All right, I go tell him!  I come again!”

“Come back here, you fat rascal!” ordered Fred.  “What do you mean about buried ivory?  What buried ivory?”

Hassan’s face lost some of its transcendent cheek.  Even the dyed beard seemed to wilt.

“What you wanting?” he asked.  “Hunt, trade, travel—­what your business?”

“Fish!” Fred answered genially.

“Samaki?”

“Yes—­samaki—­fish!”

Having no experience of Arabs, and part-Arabs, I wondered what on earth Fred could be driving at.  But Hassan wondered still more, and that was the whole point.  He stood agape, looking from one to the other of us, his fat good-natured face an interrogation mark.

“I go an’ tell bwana Tippoo Tib!” he announced, and departed swiftly.

“What’s the idea of fish, Fred?” I asked.

“Oh, just curiosity.  The way of getting information out of colored folk is to get them so frantically curious they’ve no time to think up lies.  Tobacco would have done as well—­anything unexpected.  A bird flying, and a black man lying,—­are both of ’em easy to catch or confuse unless they know which way they’re heading.  Let’s go and look at the bazaar.”

But in order to look one had to reach.  We left the great heavy-beamed hotel that had once been Tippoo Tib’s residence, but were stopped in the outer doorway by a crowd of native boys, each with a brass plate on his arm.

“Guide, sah!—­Guide, sah!—­My name ’McPhairson, sah!—­My name Jones, sah!—­My name Johnson, sah!  Guide to all the sights, sah!”

They were as persistent and evilly intentioned as a swarm of flies, and bold enough to strike back when anybody kicked them.  While we wrestled and swore, but made no headway, we were accosted by a Greek, who seemed from long experience able to pass through them without striking or being struck.  We were not left in doubt another second as to whether our friend Hassan had dallied on the way, and held his tongue or not.

“Good day, gentlemen!  I hear you are after fish!  Hah!  That is a good story to tell to Arabs!  You mean fishing for information, eh?  Ha-hah!”