"Well, friend, I been here three year now, and I guess I've livened the old place up some. If you're not busy to-morrow drop around and see my joint. There ain't another like it in the known world."
"I'll bet there's not," said Paul with conviction.
Over coffee and cigars the American talked of his youthful struggle, his experience as grocer's clerk, book agent, and drummer for furniture and hardware. Eventually he had persuaded a syndicate of manufacturers to send him to Egypt.
"I got the agency now for two hundred and forty-nine lines," he exclaimed. "Everything on God's earth from stone-crushers to corn-plasters. I been wearing samples, riding on samples, brushing my teeth with samples, and feeding samples to the dog, see."
"And who buys your wares—natives or Europeans?"
"Both—but natives mostly. I've just sold five hundred pair of rubbers, and it hasn't rained here since Moses was a baby. Soon I'll be sellin' 'em snow-shoes!
"I got a native staff for unpacking and shipping and gettin' me in a mess generally, and an Armenian girl typist and bookkeeper to get me out again. Gee, she's a wonder—talks every known tongue bar Choctaw."
"Don't you find it pretty strenuous?"
"You said it! I been up to Port Saïd to tell the American Consul to watch out for a good man. Englishmen won't peddle chewing gum round the native quarters. I like 'em, mind you—but I can't work with 'em. They want to sell goods like thermometers and spy-glasses, which don't pay like chewing-gum. Gum's infra dig, but it brings in the kale."
"I suppose Cairo is full of human oddities," Paul remarked. "Strange minglings of tribes?"
"Most of 'em don't know their own selves what the devil they are."
"Then I ought to fit somewhere."
