Sally said. “He was wearing black trousers and this billowing Indian robe of dark maroon, all embroidered with leaves in black silk, and, Miss Lauren, he was smoking a hookah! It gave me a turn when I saw him, I don’t mind telling you. There he was, big as life, looking just as sinister and mysterious as he did when he came riding up to us in the desert.” “Surely you didn’t visit that man’s quarters alone?” I asked sharply. “Really, Sally, there are limits—” “Of course I didn’t,” she interrupted. “Bill went with me. He and Bill are good friends—I think I told you that. Anyway, he was ever so polite and gracious, told us to sit down on a pile of cushions, offered the hookah to us. I took a puff. Made me quite heady. You should see his rooms, Miss Lauren—Indian cushions on the floor, books and papers everywhere and the most unusual curios, all jumbled together. There were drawings, too, whole portfolios of ’em. I looked at some—they made what we saw at Karbala seem tame!
