Why don't you buy them from the soldiers? They sell everything they can lay their hands on at the cheapest prices to the first passerby."

"Have you tried buying anything from them?" He said this with a scowl, displeased that she should speak to him in this way.

She said fearfully: "I? No, by God — I hardly ever leave the house." And she went on with evident nervousness: "The soldiers are not in the habit of hawking their wares in the streets."

"Never believe what the gossips of Damascus say..."

"And how would you know? Otherwise, where did our neighbor Salim buy that fine new blanket his wife spreads over her bed?"

He answered, shrugging his shoulders indifferently: "That I don't know."

"Try anyway. If luck serves you, you may get what you want at a comparatively low price, and you lose nothing by trying. Ask the first soldier you come across — God is compassionate, and He may help you to buy them for five hundred liras instead of the two thousand five hundred you paid the smugglers."

Abu Sayyah muttered miserably: "Even the five hundred liras you speak of —

I don't have them."

"I can hardly believe you are as clean out of money as you claim."

He answered her with simple sarcasm: "If it weren't