"Why, of course," he said with a light insouciance that was paramountedly the pinnacle of intense impropriety. "Let's see--there have been Ayah and Beeyah, Ceeyah and Deeyah, Eeyah, Effa, Geeyah, Aicha, Aihyah, Jayah, Kayah, Ella, Emma, Ennapeayah, Queahra, Essatee, Dubla, Exa, little Whyzee and," the Sheik Amut sent a thin stream of supercilious, insolent cigarette smoke at the trembling Verbeena, "so forth. But you notice there was a 'V' missing from the collection." "And so you----" "Partly--partly. But there was another, by Allah, a deeper reason." "What?" He gave her a look that was awful sneery. "That's something I'm keeping under my turban just now, Verbie. The way you go 'round here asking questions you'd think we were really married you know." "And are we not to be?" "Har-har!" laughed the Sheik Amut Ben Butler. His manner of laughter was ingrainedly and corruscatedly ironic. "Har-har!" he laughed anew. Evidently without even so much of the savor of intention that might take a favorable skid in the direction of the morganatic! Again with flaring teeth--two touched with gold--he laughed: "_Har-Har!_" CHAPTER VIII Never was any girl in all her life so grateful for a good, stiff boyish training as in that moment found herself Verbeena Mayonnaise! She thought of all the swimmin', rowin', ridin', boxin', runnin', fightin', wrestlin' she had done in the past with exultation. She even conjured up the long, sad face of Lord Tawdry with its sable curtains and experienced a wave of gratitude. In the nomenclature of Fate she felt that at this moment she had come Seven. Had not her life been one long, mystically symmetrical training for such a situation, such an emergency as this? So he sat there lawffing at her, did he? He sat there making nasty eyes at her expecting her to quiescently quiver--that soon he would have her where he would be feeding her cigarettes from his hand. She'd show this Shreik Amut with the molasses taffy hair and licorice whiskers a thing or two! [Illustration: THE BIG SCENE IN WHICH VERBEENA WITH SPURS AND HATPIN TRIUMPHS OVER THE AWFUL SHEIK.] Yes, and three and four and five! Perhaps six. Seven, eight, nine and ten! And that counts "Out!" "_Allah, O, Allah., HEY, Allah!_" suddenly shrieked Amut Ben Butler. "_What in the name of the howling hoptoads of Heligoland is--is--OW!_" You will recall I hope there was hereinbefore mentioned that Verbeena had something up her sleeve? Well, I really wasn't in a position for Verbeena's sake to give the real information then. As a matter of fact she had it in one of the patch pockets of her dashing little riding jacket. It was the _cous cous_ that had been so overloaded with red pepper by the vengeful Spaghetti. She hadn't eaten a speck of it. She'd saved it all for Amut.