Page:Harris Dickson--Old Reliable in Africa.djvu/113

 pronounced it. "By the way, we have engaged your servant, your personal attendant. You can't get along without him, and you can't get along with him."

"Fudl! Fudl!" Lyttleton clapped his hands again. "Effendi," the prompt answer came from a collection of benches and tables across the narrow side street, from a native coffee-house where servants waited the orders of their masters. Fudl stood before them—the same gown, a tarboush instead of a turban, and European shoes with white buttons. Fudl was a progressive.

"Fetch Mahomet Mansour."

"Very good, Effendi"; the Arab moved off silently and beckoned to a second man who had been sitting on the bench beside him.

"Peace upon you, Excellency. May Allah prosper thee and multiply his blessings" Mahomet Mansour greeted them in a parroted sentence. A squatty Berberine was Mahomet, the color of a russet orange, who stood half-bent and waited.

Colonel Spottiswoode was experienced in all sorts and conditions of negroes; but this introduced him to a new variety. It amused him to possess a servant with red shoes and no heels, a long-tailed shirt of silk, and confectionary stripes, and no breeches, eyes half-shut like those of a fat pig.