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Resolutely we turn our backs on him and are confronted by a very gorgeous individual in a long loose gown and turban, with innumerable strings of beads of the cheapest and commonest "Made-in-Germany" kind, hung in festoons round his neck. "Beades, sir-r-r," he begins persuasively, and the other chimes in a duet, "Poste-carte." "Beades," continues the new tormentor, swinging his wares in our faces.
No, it's not a lion roaring, though it's a pretty good imitation; it's only a camel cursing and snarling with all his might while his owner piles a few bushels' weight on his back. He doesn't really mind it, but it is the immemorial custom of camels to protest with hideousness and confused noise, and if he didn't do it his trade union would be down upon him. "Poste-carte " Come, let us go!
He quickly runs round to face us again, "Poste-carte, sir-r-r," in a tone as if the conversation had only just begun and he had great hopes of a sale. "No, thank you; go away," I say as sternly and emphatically as I can, for he is not too clean. "Poste-carte, Cismus cards, nice," he continues with unabated zeal as if we had not spoken at all.
We go to the top of a very wide main street to await the tram which is to take us to the Pyramids. "Poste-carte, sir-r-r-r," says insinuatingly a ragged ruffian, thrusting vividly coloured picture postcards into our faces as we stand. We turn away, shaking our heads.
It has been reverenced and shot at, so that its face is chipped and its nose broken away, and still it smiles with fierce serenity. Sit silently. "Poste-carte " "Imshi, imshi." That Arabic word, picked up at hazard from the dragoman, has acted like a talisman the pest has actually gone! There creeps up beside you, very slowly and determinedly, an old, old man.
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