In The Front Is
Displayed The Stock In Trade, A Matting Full Of Persian Tobacco And
Pipe-Bowls Of Red
Clay, a palm-leaf bag containing vile coffee and
large lumps of coarse, whity-brown sugar wrapped up in browner
Paper.
On the shelves and ledges are rows of well-thumbed wooden boxes,
labelled with the greatest carelessness, pepper for rhubarb, arsenic
for Tafl, or wash-clay, and sulphate of iron where sal-ammoniac should
be. There is also a square case containing, under lock and key, small
change and some choice articles of commerce, damaged perfumes, bad
antimony for the eyes, and pernicious rouge. And dangling close above
it is a rusty pair of scales, ill poised enough for Egyptian Themis
herself to use. To hooks over the shop-front are suspended reeds for
pipes, tallow candles, dirty wax tapers and cigarette paper; instead of
plate-glass windows and brass-handled doors, a ragged net keeps away
the flies when the master is in, and the thieves when he goes out to
recite in the Hasanayn Mosque his daily chapter "Ya Sin.[FN#29]" A
wooden shutter which closes down at night-time, and by day two
palm-stick stools intensely dirty and full of fleas, occupying the
place of the Mastabah or earthen bench,[FN#30] which accommodated
purchasers, complete the furniture of my preceptor's establishment.
[p.69]There he sits, or rather lies (for verily I believe he sleeps
through three-fourths of the day), a thin old man about
fifty-eight,[FN#31] with features once handsome and regular; a sallow
face, shaven head, deeply wrinkled cheeks, eyes hopelessly bleared, and
a rough grey beard ignorant of oil and comb.
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