What a pretty window in the corner! The Arabs call a window _shibaak_,
which means network, because their windows are very much like a fish-net.
Glass is seldom used in Arabia except by Europeans and Arabs who have
become civilised; and so the carpenter or joiner fits little round bars,
one into the other, like marbles or beads on a string and the result is
often very beautiful. Light and air come in (not to speak of clouds of
dust) while no one can look through from the outside; and you know how
afraid Arab girls and women are to show their faces to strangers.

Under the arch is the open fireplace where the big coffee-pots and
water-kettles simmer all day on a charcoal fire. The old man looks quite
cheerful seated on his uncomfortable stool made of date-sticks. You will
read later about our old friend the date-palm and how the tree is used for
nearly every purpose. I wish I could show you how they take the thin
branches and punch holes in them and then deftly, before you can count
ninety, build together a chair or a bedstead. I have often slept soundly
and safely on bedsteads made of these thin leaf-sticks no bigger around
than a child's finger. The sticks are full of "spring" so one does not
need a wire mattress, nor have I ever known one of them, if made honestly,
to become a _folding bed_ under a restless sleeper as they say happens
sometimes in New York hotels!

Although the old man in our picture is waited on by the younger Arab (who
is perhaps the keeper of the café), yet I know he is not rich. Do you
notice his toil-worn hands and the patch on the shoulder of his long
overcoat? I fancy too his pretty vest, so carefully buttoned by more than
a dozen cloth buttons, is a little torn on one side; nor has he a fine
girdle like the rich shopkeepers.

[Illustration: SABBACH-KUM BIL KHEIR!]