without faith or morals or manners—except bad manners!
“Go right ahead, sonny!” encouraged the Cockney. “Shoot off that ugly mouth o' yours. Call 'im bad nymes, if it 'elps your liver any. But”—turning to the Babu—“tell 'is nibs when 'e's through with 'is nytive Billingsgyte about that Al Nakia blighter, that I'd like to talk business to 'im.”
“Business—see?” he addressed the Sheik-ul-Islam direct, making that gesture with thumb and index finger which stands for money the world over, and the other smiled and wagged his carefully curled beard.
And so they did talk business, very much to both gentlemen's satisfaction, while, in a neighboring tent, Koom Khan was entertaining the governor of the western marches with a similar tale of Hector's short comings, winding up softly, ingenuously, with:
“Al Nakia is a saheb, and thou knowest what the sahebs are—all sahebs”—dwelling slightly on the word, and winking rapidly in the direction of the neighboring tent whence drifted the sound of Mr. Preserved Higgins' raucous voice.
Of old, the governor was familiar with his countryman's methods of innuendo.
“Didst thou say—all sahebs, heart of my heart?” he inquired, casually, duplicating the other's wink.
“Yes.” Koom Khan sighed. “Thou knowest the saheb-log. They either give thee three times what thou deservest, or they give thee nothing at all. Strange cattle—I do not trust them.”
