an ex-soldier, of course: one of those under-sized Cockneys with
the Whitechapel pallor overlying a pugnacious instinct, who make
such astonishing fighting-men in the intervals between sulking
and a sort of half-affectionate abuse of everything in sight.
Being impatient to begin the adventure, I suggested more speed.

"Oh!" he answered. "So you're another o' these people in an
'urry to get to Jericho! It's strynge. The last one was a
Harab. Tyke it from me, gov'nor, I've driven the very last
Harab as gets more than twenty-five miles an hour out o' me,
so 'elp me--"

He tooled the car out on to the road toward Bethany, and down the
steep hill that passes under the Garden of Gethsemane, before
vouchsafing another word. Then, as we started to climb the hill
ahead, he jerked his chin in the direction of the sharp turn we
had just passed in the bottom of the valley. "Took that corner
las' time on one wheel!"

"For the Arab?"

"Aye. Taught me a lesson. Never agayn! I ain't no Arabian
Night. Nor yet no self-immolatin' 'Indoo invitin' no juggernauts
to make no pancykes out o' me. 'Enceforth, I drives reasonable.
All Harabs may go to 'ell for all o' me."

He was itching to tell his story. He was likely to tell it
quicker for not being questioned; your Cockney dislikes anything
he can construe into inquisition. I remarked that the road
didn't seem made for speed--too narrow and too rough--and let it