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The cry from the moment you set foot in Egypt until the steamer sails is "Backsheesh! Backsheesh!" Give! give! give! Crowds surround you at every place, and from child to withered eld it is an incessant chorus. If one is weak enough to give a piastre he is done for; the crowd increases, and the roars of the beggars with it.
There were very few believers in the famous mosque of Sultan Hassan when we visited it, except the Moslemitish beadle, who was on the look-out for backsheesh, just like his brother officer in an English cathedral; and who, making us put on straw slippers, so as not to pollute the sacred pavement of the place, conducted us through it.
"For backsheesh, thy turban full of gold." Mizraim's eyes glittered-the dull black shine of a mongrel terrier's. He caught the sleeve of Nahoum's coat and kissed it, then kissed his hand. Thus was their bargain made over the dead body; and Mizraim had an almost superstitious reverence for the fulfilment of a bond, the one virtue rarely found in the Oriental.
The son of the Chinese basketmaker, who dwelt almost next door, spoke neither English nor Hindustani, but showed an easy comprehension of her promise of backsheesh when he should return with an answer.
He only achieved this at last, again on the advice of Abdul Huseyn, by giving the Khedive as backsheesh the Syrian donkey-market, the five hundred feddans of cotton, and Hope's new school. Then, believing in no one in Egypt any more, he himself went with an armed escort and his Quaker hat, and the Order of the Khedive, to Fazougli, and brought Shelek Pasha penniless to Cairo.
"You've learned the custom of the place," said Lacey, as he saw the gold piece glitter in the brown palm of the orderly. "I suppose the man's only pay is in such service," rejoined David. "It is a land of backsheesh. The fault is not with the people; it is with the rulers. I am not sorry to share my goods with the poor." "You'll have a big going concern here in no time," observed Lacey.
"The last one was talking about the beauty of his fat lady friend," he remarked drily. "Just before, they were discussing whether they would be given any backsheesh in addition to their pay. We are quite off the ordinary routes here, and these fellows aren't much used to Europeans." Laura rose to her feet. "I'm going to get a drink," she announced.
If they're here at all, they are lying perdu in Cairo Street or in some of the Turkish quarters, smoking hasheesh, perhaps, or flirting with the Nautch dancers, and all disguised in turban, fez, or perhaps a Chinese pigtail. 'Do you believe it? 'I certainly do. 'Jove! I wonder how they managed to get into those foreign holy of holies. 'Backsheesh, I answered tartly.
What is honestly mine is eight feddans, and the rest, by the grace of God, is thine, O effendi." Every feddan he had he had honestly earned, but this was his way of offering backsheesh. And the Mudir had due anger and said: "No better are ye than a Frank to have hidden the truth so long and waxed fat as the Nile rises and falls. The two feddans, as thou sayest, are mine."
"You brute!" she said undiplomatically and in French as he moved a few steps nearer and salaamed deeply. "Why, you're the man who followed me from the restaurant to-day! What do you want? Backsheesh? I haven't any so you had better let me go at once unless you want the police after you! You can't treat English women in this off-hand way with impunity, I can assure you.
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