"What countryman are you?" I asked him.

"Zeitoonli," he answered, as if the word were honor itself and explanation
bound in one. Yet he looked hardly like an honorable man. "The
chilabi are staying here?" he asked. Chilabi means gentleman.

"We wait on the weather," said I, not caring to have him turn the
tables on me and become interrogator.

He laughed with a sort of hard good humor.

"Since when have Eenglis sportmen waited on the weather? Ah, but
you are right, effendi, none should tell the truth in this place,
unless in hope of being disbelieved!" He laid a finger on his right
eye, as I have seen Arabs do when they mean to ascribe to themselves
unfathomable cunning. "Since you entered this common room you have
not ceased to observe me closely. The other sportman has watched
those Zingarri. What have you learned?"

He stood with lean hands crossed now in front of him, looking at
us down his nose, not ceasing to smile, but a hint less at his ease,
a shade less genial.

"I have heard you--and them--described as jingaan," I answered, and
he stiffened instantly.

Whether or not they took that for a signal--or perhaps he made another
that we did not see--the six undoubted gipsies got up and left the
room, shambling out in single file with the awkward gait they share