Page:Harris Dickson--Old Reliable in Africa.djvu/282

. At which Zack smiled: "Ev'y one o' dem niggers is comin' back. I'll fix 'em, ef Mister Bim quits meddlin'" There had been small need to advertise the Black Effendi's enterprise. Fifty Shilluks stood around and saw the shack being built; and fifty more recruits had arrived before Said finished cleaning the fish. They came drifting back, with reinforcements, when the worrisome white men left. The place swarmed with sniffing Dinkas, lip-licking Shilluks, and slinking dogs, when a greasy smoke uprose from that first crisp and smelly pan. Zack spread his table, and rang the bell: "Hot fish! Hot fish! Git 'em while dey're hot!"

Nobody got. Zack, in cap and apron, leaned over the rail and rang the bell again: "Hot cat! Hot cat! Five cents to-day; charge mo' to-morrow. Tell 'em dat, Side." Zack laboriously explained, and Said passed the glorified tidings in garbled Arabic to another interpreter, who turned and spoke a few words in the Shilluk tongue.

Mr. Bim from the window of his quarters, observed the maneuver through a field glass, with an excitement almost as tense as if he waited a Dervish rush. The hot-cat proposition got a frost. Not a Shilluk put down his other leg, not a Dinka rose from his haunches. Nobody wanted