I called Hama, whose long form I could see in the yard, and giving him the money before the priest, told him to scatter it to the poor, and so I scored again, for I knew the old trick; he sought to make me take the money, and relying upon a native cupidity, had presented me with a trust which gave me the power of retaining the cash. He saw that I had seen the catch, and smiled quietly, looking at me in a curious way, and I, waiting for no further comments, left him. Outside again I mounted the mule, and the emptiness of the saddle-bags recalling to mind the rejected sugar, I asked Hama what he had done with it. “Why,” he said, “when the dog refused it, I took it to the coffee-house here, and pretended I had brought it from Halabja for sale. They bought it for seventeen krans, and here’s the money,” and he showed me the krans in his hand, and expressed his satisfaction at so profitable an ending of the affair. Yet he was boiling with indignation at the reception I had met from the Shaikh ul Islam, and upbraided me for wasting my time upon such a person, recommending me rather than suffer the indignities he had put upon me to relinquish my quest of the unpaid debt--a piece of advice I told him I would take with pleasure. [Sidenote: RETURN OF UTHMAN PASHA] When I arrived at Halabja in the evening, I found that Uthman Pasha had arrived from Sulaimania with all his suite, and that Shaikh Ali of Tavila had also come in with a huge procession of hangers-on, from Gulanbar, where he had been staying. So full was the place now that I was glad that I had, two days before, shifted my quarters to a room below the reception-room of Lady Adela, where in a back verandah I lived a secluded and peaceful life, undisturbed by anyone except the people of Lady Adela coming to fetch me for secretarial duties, which I had taken up almost regularly for her by now.