These Ghetto transactions have an underlying principle of their own: furnish as poor goods as possible at as high a price as you can get! The buyer is already nervous at the prospect of his flight, so, in spite of all, he pays an absolutely fabulous price. Fifty francs is usually the price of an old suit, of which the trousers come, perhaps, from Germany, the waistcoat from France, and the coat from Italy, and which would be very dear at ten francs. The "business friend" next claims a gold piece for allowing the légionnaire to change his clothes in his house; a further gold piece arranges for the care of his uniform, which a légionnaire who is at all careful will not be persuaded so easily to leave in the lurch. For the deserter captured without his uniform is tried for theft by court-martial, and the military tribunal in Oran always passes sentence of a long term of penal servitude. But the man of Israel is willing enough--provided he gets a gold piece for it--to take care that the uniform and entire equipment of his customer is safely preserved for the poor regiment. Neatly bound together the uniform lies idle for a few days. Then, one dark night, a youth from the Ghetto throws the parcel over the wall of the barracks. A ticket has been pinned on beforehand, on which the name and number of the owner has been written so that the gentlemen in the quarter-master's office needn't cudgel their brains wondering how to register this parcel from heaven. All so considerate! The runaway, however, wanders through the alleys of the Jewish quarter and the streets of Sidi-bel-Abbès, taking great care to avoid instinctively saluting the officers and non-coms he meets. His money, with which he bought his civilian clothes, and of which there is still enough for his railway journey and passage, is a mighty help to him.