mountebanks, who pick up a living by taking advantage of tolerance and
good nature. You've all seen the type. It's commonest at race-meetings
but you'll find it anywhere in the world where vagrant men of means
foregather.

Again Yussuf Dakmar's face became a picture of suppressed emotion. I
pocketed the wallet with the same matter-of-fact air with which I have
accepted a servant's money to keep safe for him scores of times. He
believed me to be a drunkard, who had been thoroughly doped that day and
would probably drink hard that night to drown the after-taste. It ought
to be easy to rob me while I slept. Any fool could have read his
thoughts.

He came down and ate supper with us at a trestle table in the dimly
lighted dining-room, and I encouraged his new-born optimism by ordering
two bottles of whisky to take upstairs. Jeremy, who can't be happy
unless playing his part for all it's worth, became devoutly religious
and made a tremendous fuss because ham was put on the table. He accused
the proprietor of using pig's fat to smear all the cooking utensils,
demanded to see the kitchen, and finally refused to eat anything but
leban, which is a sort of curds. If Yussuf Dakmar had entertained
suspicions of Jeremy's real nationality they were all resolved by the
time that meal was finished.

But the five' men who had followed us from the station sat in the dark
at a table in the far corner of the room and watched every move we made.
When the coffee was brought I sat smoking and surly over it, as if my
head ached from the day's drink; Grim and Jeremy, aching for sleep but
refusing like good artists to neglect a detail of their part, went to
another table and played backgammon, betting quarrelsomely; and at last