Kagig laughed, not the least nervously.

"Mirza," he said in Persian, "duzd ne giriftah padshah ast!" (Prince,
the uncaught thief is king.)

He was wearing a kalpak--the head-gear of the cossack, which would
make a high priest look outlawed, and a shaggy goat-skin coat that
had seen more than one campaign. Unmistakably the garment had been
slit by bullets, and repaired by fingers more enthusiastic than adept.
There was a pride of poverty about him that did not gibe well with
his boast of being a robber.

"That's the first gink we've met in this land who didn't claim to
be something better than he looked!" Will whispered.

"Hopeless, I suppose!" Fred answered. "Never mind. I like the man."

It was evident that Monty liked him, too, for all his schooled reserve.
Kagig ordered one of the owner's sons to sweep a place near the fire,
and there he superintended the spreading of Monty's blankets, close
enough to his own assorted heap for conversation without mutual offense.
Will cleaned for himself a section of the opposite end of the platform,
and Fred and I spread our blankets next to his. That left Rustum
Khan in a quandary. He stood irresolute for a minute, eying first
the gipsies, who had stalled most of their animals and were beginning
to occupy the platform on the other side; then considering the wide
gap between me and Monty. The dark-skinned man of breeding is far
more bitterly conscious of the color-line than any white knows how to be.

We watched, disinclined to do the choosing for him, racial instinct