I did not even try to appear interested.

He ordered Suliman to explain to me.
"Mafish mukhkh!" said the boy, touching his own forehead.
My real motive was to act as differently as possible from the white man, who always pays twice what he should.

By establishing the suggestion of accustomed meanness, I hoped to offset any breaks I might make presently.

Spies, and people of that kind, usually have plenty of money for their needs, so that by acting the part of a man unused to spending except in minute driblets I stood a better chance of not being detected.
But I was in luck.

I have often noticed, so that it has become almost an article of creed with me, that luck invariably breaks that way.