I am a poor man, but honest.

At what time shall I come for the money in the morning?
Perhaps you could give me a little on account at once, for my wages are due tonight and I'm not at all certain of getting them." "Well, see me in the morning," said the banker.
He got up and left us at once, hardly troubling to excuse himself; and Grim heard him tell the hotel proprietor that our whole party would be locked up in jail before midnight.

That rumour went the rounds like wild-fire, so that we were given a wide berth and had a table all to ourselves in the darkest corner of the big dim dining-room.
There were more than a hundred people eating dinner, and Narayan Singh, Hadad and I were the only ones in western clothes.

Every seat at the other tables was occupied by some Syrian dignitary in flowing robes-- rows and rows of stately looking notables, scant of speech and noisy at their food.

Many of them seemed hardly to know the use of knife and fork, but they could all look as dignified as owls, even when crowding in spaghetti with their fingers.
We provided them with a sensation before the second course was finished.
A fine-looking Syrian officer in khaki, with the usual cloth flap behind his helmet that forms a compromise between western smartness and eastern comfort, strode into the room and bore down on us.