Through Amor, who acted as interpreter, she carried on a lively intercourse with Said Hitani. The other musicians smiled, but seldom spoke, and only among themselves. But Said Hitani, the great artist of his native city, a man famous far and wide among the Arabs, was infinitely diverting and descriptive in talk even as when he gave himself to the flute. With an animation that was youthful he described the meaning of each new song. He had two flutes on which he played alternately--"Mousou et Madame," he called them. And he knew, so he declared, over a hundred songs. Mrs. Shiffney, speaking to him always through Amor, told him of London, and what a sensation he and his companions would make there in the _decor_ of a Moorish cafe. Said Hitani pulled his little gray beard with his delicate hands, swayed to and fro, and smiled. Then sharply he uttered a torrent of words which seemed almost to fight their way out of some chamber in his narrow throat. "Said Hitani says you have only to send money and the address and they are all coming whenever you like. They are very pleased to come." At this point one of the musicians, a fair man with pale eyes who played the tarah, interposed a remark which was uttered with great seriousness. "Can they go to London on camels, he wishes to know," observed Amor gently. Said Hitani waited for Mrs. Shiffney's answer with a slightly judicial air, moving his head as if in approval of the tarah-player's forethought. "I'm afraid they can't." The tarah-player spoke again. "He says, can they go on donkeys?" "No. It is further than Paris, tell him." "Then they must go on the sea. Paris is across the sea." "Yes, they will have to take a steamer." At this juncture it was found that the tarah-player would not be of the party. "He says he would be very sick, and no man can play when he is sick." "What will Madame pay?" interposed Said Hitani. Mrs. Shiffney declared seriously that she would think it over, make a calculation, and Amor should convey her decision as to price to him on the morrow. All seemed well satisfied with this. And the tarah-player remarked, after a slight pause, that he would wait to know about the price before he decided whether he would be too sick to play in London. Then, at a signal from Said Hitani, they all took up their instruments and played and sang a garden song called _Mabouf_, describing how a Sheik and his best loved wife walked in a great garden and sang one against the other. "It has been quite delicious!" said Mrs. Shiffney to Claude, when at last the song _Au Revoir_, tumultuously brilliant with a tremendous crescendo at the close, had been played, and with many salaams and good wishes the musicians had departed. "I love their playing," Claude answered. "But really you shouldn't have paid them. I have arranged with Hitani to come every evening."