The street that we followed was, of course, the open sewer for the houses on either hand, and its condition was a credit to the mangy curs that so resented our intrusion.
Abdul Ali's house, if his it was, was a fairly big square building near the middle of the town.

It did not look unlike one of the old-time New York precinct stations, with its big windows protected by iron grilles, and a flight of stone steps leading up to a door exactly in the middle of the front wall.
There were thirty or forty capable-looking men hanging about the place.

Abdul Ali owned more than one camel caravan, and every man connected with the business looked on himself as a member of one big feudal family.

They were all armed.

Most of them had modern rifles.
We were admitted into a room that faced on the street, furnished entirely in the eastern style, except for two gilt chairs against the wall.