volunteered at last.

"Bravo Petruchio!" I said under my breath. But if Biddy's plot were to
succeed, it was _my_ business to play the part of Petruchio to this
Katherine. Let the masquerading prince find a Desdemona who would suit
his Othello!




CHAPTER V

THE CAFE OF ABDULLAH


"Well--you got away from them all right?" began the man with the green
turban when, according to his roundabout instructions, I met him an
hour later at the cafe he had named, one of the principal resorts of
Cairo, where Europeans can consort with natives without attracting
remark.

"The real dragoman came and took them off my hands--at least the realer
one than you--a dreadful creature with a game eye, who murdered your
messenger last night, and gave me your letter and induced the ladies to
engage him on the strength of it. No wonder they want a 'looker' to
take the taste of him out of their mouths. And you certainly are a
'looker' in that get-up. Now kindly tell me all about it, and
everything else."

"That's what I'm here for," said Anthony, running a match-box to earth