Page:Harris Dickson--Old Reliable in Africa.djvu/115

 you must could know. Sheekargo see!" The Colonel admitted his lamentable ignorance concerning Mr. Theophilus Warwine of Chicago, Illinois, but the peculiar name stuck in his memory.

"How much are your wages?" he asked.

"The month, three hundred piasters tariff; it is nothing; I, Mahomet can certify—for the love"

"Hold on," the Colonel stopped Mahomet's patter. "How much is all that?"

Lyttleton Bey interpreted, "A piaster is tuppence ha' penny—three hundred, that would be twelve sovereigns, about sixty dollars."

"What does he do for that?" the Colonel glanced towards Mahomet and wanted to hear him talk.

Mahomet warmed up, turned on his orotund inflection, and gesticulated: "I show you the bazaars, the Mosque Ahmad. We see the birrymeed"

"The what?"

"The birrymeed; birrymeed—tall—so, aglib."

"Burymede? where is that?" the American shifted his inquiry to McDonald; the place had such a sporty name, like a race course.

"Birrymeed! birrymeed!" repeated Mahomet.

"He means the pyramids," suggested McDonald.