Just let him gallop a few minutes because Verbeena has started examining his book case and that if anything should tell her what kind of a bibliophile, Francophile or Swissoup this strong-armed philanderer was. It was a surprise to Verbeena to find there this case of books for she had always thought that all to be expected of the Sahara was volumes of dates. However, she stood corrected so she scanned the titles. At the very first she drew back with a shudder having read: "Poems of Passion" by Ring Lardner. Then "The Children's Hour" by Ghee de Maupassant. Pshaw, she'd read that! Kraft-Ebing also was old stuff. And she passed over without interest a corpulent tome entitled "Der Vaw; Vhy Ve Dit Id Bad" by Ludendorff. Then she came upon "Manly Beauty, Its Dangers and Temptations," by Irvin Cobb and Paul Swan. Two other titles, however, fascinated her. One was "Florinda of the Furnished Rooms" by Robert W. Chalmers, and the other "Maurice of the Monkey Glands" by Elinor Flynn in collaboration with the author of "Arzan of the Apes." "Eeny, meeny, minee, mo--" began Verbeena when another title clattered against her vision. "The Passion Worm of the Sahara, an Account of its Discovery," by Robert S. Hitchings. At first she derived about ten degrees of comfort from the discovery that Amut wasn't exactly a raw native, that he was probably half-baked at least. She felt that it would be logically safe to presuppose that she was mixed up with a king of the desert, who might be found to be superficially coated with a veneer of civilization that was tenuous. And yet dared she find comfort in that? Might it not make him the more horrible, sinister, intolerable, cheekier and fresher than ever, this desert devil in whom passion dictated the methods of a chiropractitioner? "O, hum!" screamed the distrait and fearful Verbeena doing a backfall among the cushions. There was one good thing she could say for him anyway--his cigarettes were smokable. They were, she had seen by the boxes, of the famous brand of Bull Camel. Of one thing she was convinced. There would be no sandbagging this evening. [Illustration: SPAGHETTI.] She had reduced Spaghetti to where she had only to show him the hat pin and he would run right out and sit in the sand. She had made him produce the sand-bag too, had ripped it open and poured the contents back into the desert. Also she had asked Spaghetti numerous questions about the Sheik Amut and as far as she could make out his chief business was that of a breeder, trainer and trapper of horses of a high-class character. Nothing in the trucking way but mostly for society and circus uses. The business of _femme_-_snatching_, her informant had assured her, was totally new to him. Did he have a harem?