but they are more than willing to display their goods, and will
doubtless invite you to a seat upon the shop ledge--where your feet
dangle gracefully above a rough cobble-stone pavement--and sometimes
even to a cup of tea. One after another, in quick succession, carpets
of different dimensions (but all oblong, for Moorish rooms are narrow
in comparison with their length) are spread out in the street, and the
shop-owners' satellite, by reiterated cries of "Bálak! Bálak!" (Mind
out! Mind out!) accompanied by persuasive pushes, keeps off the
passing donkeys. A miniature crowd of interested spectators will
doubtless gather round you, making remarks upon you and your
purchases. Charmed by the artistic colourings, rich but never garish,
you ask the price, and if you are wise you will immediately offer just
half of that named. It is quite probable that the carpets will be
folded up and returned to their places upon the shelf at the back of
the shop, but it is equally probable that by slow and tactful yielding
upon either side, interspersed with curses upon your ancestors and
upon yourself, the bargain will be struck about halfway between the
two extremes.

The same method must be adopted with every article bought, and if you
purpose making many purchases in the same shop, you will be wise to
obtain and write down the price quoted in each case as "the _very_
lowest," and make your bid for the whole at once, lest, made cunning
by one experience of your tactics, the shopman should put on a wider
marginal profit in every other instance to circumvent you. It is also
well for the purchaser to express ardent admiration in tones of calm
indifference, for the Moor has quick perceptions, and though he may
not understand English, when enthusiasm is apparent, he has the key to
the situation, and refuses to lower his prices.