exception of official residences, no names were posted anywhere.
That was not an official residence. It was a sort of communal
boarding-house improvised by a dozen or so officers in preference
to the bug-laden inconvenience of tents--in a German-owned
(therefore enemy property) stone house at the end of an alley, in
a garden full of blooming pomegranates.

I sent my card in by a flat-footed old Russian female, who ran
down passages and round corners like a wet hen, trying to find a
man-servant. The place seemed deserted, but presently she came
on her quarry in the back yard, and a very small boy in a
tarboosh and knickerbockers carried the card on a tray into a
room on the left. Through the open door I could hear one quiet
question and a high-pitched disclaimer of all knowledge; then an
order, sounding like a grumble, and the small boy returned to the
hall to invite me in, in reasonably good English, of which he
seemed prouder than I of my Arabic.

So I went into the room on the left, with that Bedouin still in
mind. There was only one man in there, who got out of a deep
armchair as I entered, marking his place in a book with a
Damascus dagger. He did not look much more than middle height,
nor more than medium dark complexioned, and he wore a major's
khaki uniform.

"Beg pardon," I said. "I've disturbed the wrong man. I came to
call on an American named Major Grim."

"I'm Grim."