I fell in conversation with him.
The frankness with which treason is mooted, admitted and discussed in the Near East is one of the first things that amaze you.

They are so open about it that nobody takes them seriously.
Apparently it is only when they don't talk treason openly that the ruling authorities get curious and make arrests.

To me, a total stranger, with nothing to recommend me but that for an hour or two that afternoon I was a guest of the American Colony, Mustapha ben Nasir made no bones whatever about the fact that the was being paid by the French to stir up feeling over Jordan against the British.
"I receive a monthly salary," he boasted.

"I am just from Damascus, where the French Liaison-officer paid me and gave me some instructions." "Where is your home ?" I asked him.
"At El-Kerak, in the mountains of Moab, across the Dead Sea.

I start this evening.