“Yá-Moulai,” said my guide, “let me advise you to grease your tongue with honey before we go, that the shopkeepers may respond to the compliments you must pay them by lowering their prices. I notice that you have a smile on your lips. Yá-Allah! do you wish to return with an empty purse? Press your lips together, affect a poverty-stricken demeanour, otherwise you will be fleeced not only by the traders, but also by every beggar in Mecca, more particularly by those who lie in wait for the generous-hearted round about the Harem. On entering each shop you must cough as hard as you can, though you tear your chest in pieces: then the shopkeeper will be compassionate in the matter of charges. Another counsel I would offer you is this. Let us suppose you want to buy a knife. The first thing you must do is to ask the cutler for a sword, then for a dagger, then for a pair of scissors, and, after refusing all of these things with a sneer, you must command him to show you a knife in a voice toned to insinuate that the purchasing of that article is an act of generosity on your part, a magnanimous recompense to him for his trouble. For our merchants, though they are often crafty and betray a suspicious conscience, are, if you treat them as they expect to be treated, of a childlike simplicity. So cast off your sandals that you may acquire the reputation of a saint and thus be treated fairly in the bazaars. Believe me, Yá-Moulai, if you follow these instructions, you will drive a better bargain with the Meccan than you would by trusting to the honesty of a Firangi trader who is civilisation-proof against these simple wiles.” And so chattering he led me through the crowded streets, and would have asked for alms, that I might pass as a beggar, had I not forbidden him sternly to practise in my service a piece of deceit as unworthy of himself as it would be humiliating to me; whereon he glanced at me furtively muttering in his beard: “He is as proud as a Shahzadeh.”