CHAPTER XIX
RUMOURS OF RELIEF
Soon after the departure of Onoor Issa I was saved any further trouble in the way of scheming for excuses to get out of the Saier. Awwad-el-Mardi, the successor of Nur-el-Gerafawi as the Amin Beit-el-Mal on the appointment of the latter as director of the Khaleefa's ordnance stores, had been approached by Nahoum Abbajee and others on the subject of the extraction of gold and silver from certain stones which had been discovered in the neighbourhood. Awwad sent Nahoum to see me about the erection of a crushing-mill or furnaces. My interview with Nahoum was a stormy one. It commenced by his upbraiding me for the pranks I had played in smashing the arsenal punching-machine when we were associated in the establishment of a mint. The more I laughed the angrier Nahoum became; he is deaf, and like most deaf people, invariably speaks in an undertone, which is as distressing to the hearer as is the necessity he is under of bawling back his replies. It is next to impossible to hold a conversation with a deaf person without the natural result of raising the voice exhibiting itself in the features; the annoyance is there plain
