If you want to buy anything, you send for a shopkeeper to your house and ask his price. He tells you. You smile derisively, and offer him just a third. He is pained, he is indignant, the thing is absurd, he gave a great deal more than that himself. You say, “Good morning.” Then he says--Well, he will do what he can, for you are a friend to the poor, but it will be a dead loss to him; and he knocks a little off his price. You say, “No,” but add a little on to yours, and so it goes on for a variable time, derision and sarcasm on your side--a pained indignation on his. Finally, he takes less than half of what he asked originally, and is well paid then; but when he goes away you feel rather as if you had swindled the poor man. Though shopkeepers in Kabul selling similar goods tend to congregate in the same bazaar, they do not do so to the same degree as in some of the towns of India. You find boot shops in other streets than the chief boot bazaar; and so with other goods for sale. In the tea-drinking shops you see a large samovar, about three feet high, in one corner, where water is kept boiling hot by the glowing charcoal in the centre pipe. Men drop in and seat themselves, cross-legged, for a chat and a cup of tea. The shops will hold some three or four. The Afghans like their tea very hot, weak, very sweet, and flavoured with cardamoms, which are put unpowdered into the teapot. They pay a pice, that is a little less than a farthing, for a cup of tea. If a man has some tea with him, and he often has, he can always send to one of these shops for a teapot and hot water. He pays a pice for it. There is also a preparation they call “kaimagh-chai,” but this is comparatively expensive, and is drunk only at festivals or times of rejoicing. It is a mixture of tea, sugar, cream, soda, and cardamoms. It is thick, curdy, pink, and very sweet--not at all bad to taste, but very “rich.” The teapots, cups, and saucers in use are generally from Russia. Some of the richer men have them from China or Japan. [Sidenote: The Kabul Restaurant.]