CHAPTER Two.
"No objection; only a stipulation." The showmanship began much sooner than I hoped.

The following day was Sunday, and I had an invitation to a sort of semi-public tea given by the American Colony after their afternoon religious service.
They received their guests in a huge, well-furnished room on the upper floor of a stone house built around a courtyard filled with flowers.

I think they were a little proud of the number of fierce-looking Arabs, who had traveled long distances in order to be present.

Ten Arab chieftains in full costume, with fifteen or twenty of their followers, all there at great expense of trouble, time and money, for friends sake, were, after all, something to feel a bit chesty about.

Every member of the Colony seemed able to talk Arabic like a native and, as they used to say in the up- state papers, a good time was being had by all.