"Get into bed, effendi," Jeremy advised me, feeding the cue back, since
I was in the middle of the stage.

"Not into that bed!" I answered, shaking my head solemnly. "That f'ler
put snakes in on purpose. Why's he sober when I'm drunk? I won't sleep
in bed with sober man. Let him get drun' too, an' both see snakes.
Then I'll sleep with him!"

Jeremy's roving eye fell on the small doped bottle that I had taken from
Grim's valise. Looking preternaturally wise, he walked over to Yussuf
Dakmar's bed, sat down on it with his back toward me and proceeded to
unfold a plan.

"Allah makes all things easy," he began. "It is lawful to take all
precautions to confound the infidel. We shall never get that drunkard
to bed as long as there's any whisky, so let's encourage him to drink it
all. When it's gone he'll sleep on the floor and we'll get some peace.
It's a good chance for us to drink whisky without committing sin! We
needn't take much--just one drink each, and then he'll swallow the rest
like a hog to prevent our getting any more. You look as if a glass of
whisky would do you good. That fellow Omar is asleep and won't see us,
so nobody can tell tales afterwards. It's a good opportunity. Come
on!"

I had sat so that Yussuf Dakmar couldn't see what I was doing and poured
out the liquor in advance, arranging the glasses so that Yussuf Dakmar
would take the doped stuff--a perfectly un-Christian proceeding, I
admit. Christians are scarce when you get right down to cases. Most of
us in extremity prefer Shakespeare's adage about hoisting engineers. It