So his place began to be frequented by effendis in tarboosh and semi-European clothes, who could chew the cud of bitterness aloud between walls that the crusaders had built four feet thick.

The only entrance was through the narrow front door, where Yussuf inspected every visitor before admitting him.
So Yussuf's "Cafe Djemal Pasha" was the place to go to for politics, of the red-hot, death-and-dynamite order that would make Lenin and Trotsky sound like small-town sports.

But first you had to get by Yussuf at the door.
Suliman led me by the hand down David Street, through the smelly- yelly moil of flies and barter, past the meat and vegetable stalls, beneath the crusader arches from which Jewish women peered through trellised windows, across three transversing lanes of the ancient suku,* and halted at Yussuf's door.

[*Bazaar] He rapped on it three times.

When Yussuf's wrinkled face appeared at last Suliman demanded to see Staff-Captain Ali Mirza.
Yussuf's blood-shot eyes peered at me for a long time before he asked a question.
"Atrash!--akras!--majnoon!!" [Deaf!--Dumb!--Mad!!] said Suliman.
Describing me as mad seemed to give him particular delight.