The Mamur Zapt and the return of the Carpet

CHAPTER 4

Owen had arranged for the sergeant to be brought to the Kasr el Nil barracks and the following morning he went down to interrogate him.

He met Mahmoud at the bridge and they walked into the barracks together.

The guards at the main gate eyed the Egyptian curiously but noncommittally and pointed out the administration block, a large, old-fashioned building with lattices and sentry-boxes.

Their way to it took them past a vast, sanded parade ground on which soldiers were drilling. A squad approached them along the edge of the square. As it passed, the drilling sergeant gave them an eyes-right. Owen, who was in Army uniform, acknowledged with a salute. His eye took in their hot, strained faces. New from England, he thought; and fairly new to the Army, too, judging by their awkwardness.

The sentry-boxes and lattices were touched up with white, but inside the administration block everything was a darker, more restful green. A huge three-bladed fan rotated above the heads of the clerks bent at their desks in the orderly room.

One of the clerks collected the passes from Owen and disappeared into an inner room. A moment or two later a corporal came out with them in his hand, greeted Owen and called to a bearer squatting on the floor by the door. The man hurried out.

“It’s all laid on, sir,” said the corporal. “The escort got in about half an hour ago and is waiting in the guard-room. They’ll bring him over directly.”

“Fine,” said Owen. “Have you got a suitable room?”

“There’s one we normally use for this sort of thing,” said the corporal. “I’ll take you, sir.”

He registered Mahmoud’s presence.

“Mr. el Zaki,” said Owen. “From the Parquet.”

“Good morning, sir,” said the corporal politely.

“I’d like him to listen in.”

“Oh,” said the corporal, and hesitated. “A bit difficult, sir,” he said, after a moment.

“I don’t want anything too special,” said Owen. “Is there a room next door? Yes? Well, stick a chair in that and leave the door open. That should be enough.”

“Yes, sir,” said the corporal, but looked unhappy. His eyes sent desperate signals to Owen, which Owen refused to read. He knew very well what the trouble was. The Army guarded its privileges jealously. One of those was that its soldiers were subject to no legal processes but its own. It would not allow its men to be brought before any civilians, much less Egyptian civilians.

“Mr. el Zaki will not be actually present,” he pointed out helpfully.

“I–I know, sir,” said the corporal, thinking hard.

“You have the passes.”

“Yes, sir.” The corporal glanced at them uncomfortably. “They- they don’t actually say, sir-” he began with a rush and then stopped.

“They wouldn’t,” said Owen. He was on tricky ground. He could not insist. “But they do authorize Mr. el Zaki to come with me. And the reason for that is plain, Corporal,” he added, with just a little amount of stress, pulling his rank.

“Yes, sir,” the corporal responded automatically to the inflection, “of course sir.”

“Then-?”

The corporal made up his mind.

“I’ll have to check, sir,” he said. “Sorry, sir,” he added apologetically.

He went off along the corridor. Because of the heat all the rooms had their doors open, and so Owen was able to hear very clearly the explosion at the far end of the building.

“A bloody Gyppy? Certainly not!”

Heavy footsteps hurried down the corridor and a flushed major burst into the room.

“What the-” he began, and then, seeing Mahmoud, stopped.

Even the Army had to make some effort to keep up appearances.

“Would you step this way, Captain?” he said stiffly, and stalked off up the corridor.

In his room he wheeled on Owen.

“What the bloody hell do you think you’re doing?”

“I’d like el Zaki to listen in.” “He can’t. I’m not having one of our men questioned by a bloody native.”

“He’s a member of the Parquet, for Christ’s sake!”

“Still a bloody native as far as I’m concerned,” said the major, “and I’m not having him question one of our men.”

“Who the hell said anything about him questioning anybody? I’m questioning. He’s listening.”

“Same thing.”

“It’s not the same thing. He’ll be in a separate room. All I want is the doors open.”

“Can’t be done,” said the major flatly.

“I’d like it done.”

The major’s cheeks tightened.

“Would you, now,” he said sarcastically. “And just who the hell are you?”

“I’m the Mamur Zapt,” said Owen. “And I’ve got authorization to interrogate, and I’d like to bloody get on with it.”

The major looked at him hard. Then he went across to his desk and sat down.

“You’re the Mamur Zapt, are you?” He spoke with distaste. "That’s right,” said Owen. “OK?”

“You can question him,” said the major, with a stress on the “you.” “He can’t.”

“I don’t want him to question. I want him to listen.”

“He can’t.”

“I want facilities made available for him to listen in.”

The major looked at the papers on his desk.

“It doesn’t say anything about that here,” he said.

“It doesn’t have to.”

“For something like this,” said the major, “I’d need authorization.” “You don’t usually.”

“I do this time,” said the major. He thought for a moment and then smiled. “Yes,” he said, “that’s right. For something like this I’d need special authorization. In writing.”

“That would be too late. The man’s coming out on Thursday.” “Pity!”

Owen considered going over the major’s head, directly to the commander-in-chief. He knew one of the Sirdar’s aides-de-camp.

The major must have seen him look at the telephone, for he said: “I’d need it in writing. From the Sirdar. Personally.”

It would take too long. Even if he got through to John, John would need time to clear it.

The major was watching him. “OK?” he said.

“Not OK,” said Owen.

“Dear, dear!”

“There’s a certain amount of rush on.”

“Difficult.”

“Could be,” said Owen. “For you.”

“Why me?” The major raised eyebrows.

“If things go wrong.”

“Why should they?”

Owen carried on as if he hadn’t heard.

“Especially if it came out why they went wrong.”

“I’ll risk that.”

All the same the major must have felt a little uneasy, for he said: “You won’t get anything out of him. Not if he’s coming out on Thursday.”

“I’ll risk that,” said Owen. “It’s just that I’d like el Zaki to listen in.”

“Didn’t you hear?” asked the major. “In writing. From the Sirdar. Personally.”

Owen sighed.

“Anything else I can do for you?” asked the major.

"No,” said Owen. “Not yet.”

He turned to go, then stopped.

“Oh, just one thing-”

“Yes?”

“Major…?”

“Brooker,” said the major. “Major Brooker.”

“Thank you,” said Owen. “That was it.”

“It wasn’t my fault, sir,” the ex-sergeant said. “I trusted those bloody Gyppies. That bloody ’Assan. He’d got it all figured out. He had his mates outside. ’Course, I was wrong to trust him. That was my mistake.”

Ingenuous blue eyes met Owen’s. Owen, who did not believe a word of it, decided to play along.

“Tell me about this Hassan,” he said.

“Bloody orderly, sir. Used to run messages. ’Ere, there and everywhere. Kept his eyes open. Didn’t miss much.”

“You think he tipped somebody off?”

“Or let them in, sir. There was a skylight found open. You know, I’d been looking at that bloody skylight a couple of days before. There was only a simple catch on it and I thought to myself: Anyone could open that. But I didn’t bother much because it was so small. I thought: Nobody can get in there. But do you know what I think, sir? The way it was done?”

He leaned forward confidentially.

“They slipped in one of those walads. A boy. Probably stripped him naked and greased him all over. Seen it done. At Ismailia. Bloody gang of kids. Went all through the mess. Watches, cash, even your bloody handkerchief. The little bastards. But they got too cocky and the guards caught one of them. Brought the little bugger to me. I caught hold of him and was going to teach him a thing or two but he slipped through my hands. That’s how I knew he was greased. Didn’t do him much good. The guard caught him with the rifle butt.”

“And you think that’s what may have happened here?”

“Can’t swear to it, sir. But the skylight was open the morning after, and it was only big enough for a kid.”

“Could be,” Owen agreed.

“ ’Course, it was my fault, sir,” said the man. “I admit that. I should have kept my eyes open. I made a mistake. But I’ve paid for it.”

The weathered, experienced face, which retained a sunburn despite nearly a year’s confinement, assumed a virtuous expression.

An old hand at the game, thought Owen. Twenty-five years in the Army, fifteen of them in India. There was not much he didn’t know. Three times reduced, each time made up again. Crafty, plausible, he would know how to make himself useful. How willing would he be to be useful now?

“Pity to get into trouble just because of a Gyppy,” he said aloud. “I know, sir,” said the ex-sergeant, as if ruefully. “I could have kicked myself.”

“It’s easy done,” said Owen.

“My mistake was to trust the bleeders. I treated them decent. That ’Assan was a useful bloke. Smart. He did me a favour or two, and I did him a few. Used to give him fags. And not say nothing if I caught him smoking in the armoury.” He grimaced. “Should have. That was my mistake.”

“In the armoury?”

“I know, sir. I dare say that’s what gave him the idea.”

Thin trickles of sweat ran down on either side of the man’s nose.

There was no fan in the room and it was very hot. The one window, high up in the wall, was shuttered. The door was closed.

“Did he ever talk?”

“ ’Assan? He went missing that night.”

Very convenient, thought Owen. And part of it might even be true. They might well have used the skylight, might even have slipped a boy in, as the man had said. Only, of course, he knew more about it than he had let on. How much did he know? Not much, if it was just a matter of money passing and agreement to turn a blind eye. Hassan could even have been the go-between. In which case the ex-sergeant would not know anyone else.

Owen looked through the file in front of him. One of the times the ex-sergeant had been reduced was for selling Army equipment. Not weaponry-the Army took that seriously. Odds and ends from the stores. At least, that was all they had caught him for. The chances were that he had flogged quite a lot more. And once a seller… The idea might have come to him again. He had been running a woman in Ismailia and had needed the cash. He might have approached somebody. There was always a ready market for weapons. He might have known someone. Worth a try.

Owen studied the face opposite him. Shrewd, Army-wise, hard. A drinker’s face. Little red veins beneath the tan, tell-tale puffiness below the eyes. In certain circumstances, thought Owen, I could crack this man.

But not easily. Not here, and probably not now. He was sitting there at ease. He knew he was coming out on Thursday. All he had to do was to sit tight and say nothing. There was no way of putting him under pressure.

Outside in the corridor he heard the guards’ feet shuffling. It would take too long to break the man, and before then he would have been interrupted.

He had to find a way of getting the man to cooperate. He might be willing if he thought there was something in it for him.

“You’ve been reduced before,” said Owen. “Three times.”

“Yes, sir,” said the man equably.

“Gets harder.”

The man gave a little shrug.

Used to it, thought Owen.

“How much longer have you got?” he asked.

The man looked slightly surprised.

“To serve, sir? Four years.” “Time enough to get made up again,” said Owen. “It would be nice to go out with a bit of money in your pocket.”

The man looked at him cautiously, but his interest was aroused. “Help me,” said Owen, “and I might help you.”

He waited.

After a moment, the man responded.

“Exactly how could I help you, sir?”

“A name. All I want is a name.”

The man rubbed his chin. There was a faint rasp. In the heat it was never possible to shave closely.

“ ’Assan is the only name I can think of, sir.”

“Sure?”

The blue eyes met his blandly.

“Yes, sir. Afraid so, sir.”

“I’m not really interested in your case,” said Owen. “I’m interested in another. And if I got a name, that could be really helpful.”

“I’d like to help, sir,” said the man. “But ’Assan is the only name I can think of.”

“Go on thinking,” said Owen, “and let me know if another name comes into your head.”

He turned through the papers in the file.

“After all,” he said casually, without looking up, “it’s only a Gyppy.”

He went on turning through the papers. No reply came. He had not really expected one.

He took a card from his pocket.

“If you want to get in touch with me,” he said, “later-and, remember, one word will do-that’s where you’ll find me.”

The man took the card and fingered it gingerly.

“Mamur Zapt,” he said, stumbling a little. He raised his head. “What’s that, sir? Civilian?”

“No,” said Owen. “Special.”

“Sorry, sir. No offence.”

After a moment he said: “ ’Course, it couldn’t be, you being in uniform. It was just that ‘Mamur’ bit.”

Owen closed the file and sat back. He had done what he could. Whether the seed he had planted would bear fruit remained to be seen.

“A mamur is just a district officer,” he said. “Not the same thing at all.”

“Of course not, sir.”

Judging that the interrogation was over he became relaxed, even garrulous.

“I know, sir. I ran into one of them once, at Ismailia. We’d gone off for the day, a few of us. Filled a boat with bottles of beer and set out along the coast. We come to this place, and the bloody boatman hops over the side. We thought he was just doing something to do with the boat, but the bugger never came back. We just sat there, waiting and drinking. We’d had a few already by this time. Anyway, after a bit we runs out of bottles so we gets out of the boat to go looking for some more when we runs into this mamur. One of my mates hits him, but we’re all so bloody pissed by then we can’t really hit anyone, and suddenly they’re all around us and we’re in the local caracol.”

Owen laughed.

The man nodded in acknowledgement and pulled a face.

“Christ!” he said. “That was something, I can tell you. A real hole. The place was stuffed full of dirty Arabs, about twenty of them in a space that would do eight, and then us as well. The pong! Jesus! Shit everywhere. You were standing in it. Pitch black. No bloody windows, just a wooden grating for a door. No air. Hot as hell. All them bodies packed together. Christ! I’ve been in some rough places, but that scared the shit out of me. We were in there for a day and half. Bloody Military didn’t get there till the next morning. And then, do you know what they did? Those bastards just came and looked at us through the grating and went away laughing! Didn’t come back till they’d had a drink. “That’ll bloody teach you!” they said. It did too, and all. Wouldn’t want to go through that again.”

The cafe stood at the corner of the Ataba el Khadra, just at the point where Muski Street, coming up from the old quarter, emerged on the squares and gardens of the European part of Cairo.

Owen had chosen a table out on the pavement, from where he could see both down Muski Street, with its open-fronted shops and goods spilling out into the road, and across the Ataba.

At this time in the evening the Ataba was lit by scores of lamps, which hung from the trees, from the railings, from shop-signs and from house-fronts, even, incongruously, from the street-lights themselves. In their soft light, round the edges of the square, the donkey-boys and cab-men gambled, drank tea and talked, forming little conversation groups which drew in passers-by and drove pedestrians into the middle of the Place, where they competed with the arabeahs and buses and trams and carts and camels and donkeys and brought traffic to a standstill.

Everywhere, even out in the middle of the thoroughfare, were street-stalls: stalls for nougat, for Turkish delight, for Arab sugar, for small cucumbers and oranges, for spectacles, leather boots and slippers, for cheap turquoises, for roses, for carnations, for Sudanese beads made in England, for sandalwood workboxes and Smyrna figs, for tea, for coffee, for the chestnuts being roasted around the foot of the trees.

And everywhere, too, were people. The women, in the shapeless dark gowns and black veils, were going home. But the men were appearing in all their finery to stroll around the streets and sit in the cafes. Here and there were desert Arabs in beautiful robes of spotless white and black, and a rather larger number of blue-gowned country Arabs from Der el Bahari. But for the most part the men were dressed in European style, apart from their handsome tarbooshes. All, however, had magnificent boots, which the shoe-brown boys fought to shine whenever an owner sat down in a cafe.

Owen enjoyed it. He lived alone, and in the evening, when he was not at the club or at the opera, he would often sit in a cafe. When he had first come to Egypt he had done it deliberately, often going to a cafe with his Arabic teacher after a lesson to drink coffee and to talk. His teacher, the Aalim Aziz, had instructed him in far more than the language during those civilized discussions of all aspects of the Arab past and present, discussions which continued late into the night and usually finished with everyone in the cafe involved.

In his first six months in Egypt Owen had gone to Aziz for instruction every day; and afterwards, when by usual European standards he spoke the language well, he would still meet him at least twice a week, not so much now for formal instruction as to continue discussion with one who had become a friend. Even now, when his work tended to isolate him, he still met Aziz regularly.

Having acquired the taste for cafe society, Owen kept it. Indeed, it was one of the things that made him prefer Egypt to India. Unlike many English Arabists, he was a man of the city rather than the desert. It was common among the British in Egypt to regard the urban Egyptian as a corrupted, degenerate version of the more sympathetic traditional Bedouin. Owen, on the other hand, was more at home with the young, educated, urban Egyptian, with people like Mahmoud.

He was waiting for Mahmoud now. After their experience that morning at the barracks, he had been anxious to contact Mahmoud at once to apologize. But when he had rung up Mahmoud to suggest a meeting he had found him off-hand, unwilling. Owen had pressed, however, and in the end, reluctantly, the Egyptian had agreed.

They had arranged to meet in the cafe that evening. Instinctively Owen felt that to be better. If they had met at the Bab el Khalk or at the Parquet he had a feeling that Mahmoud would have retreated into his shell. In the more natural atmosphere of the cafe they might do better.

But when Mahmoud arrived, the strategy did not seem to work. Owen apologized for the morning. Mahmoud brushed it aside. It was nothing, he said. How had the interview with the sergeant gone? When Owen told him, he brushed that aside, too. He hadn’t really expected anything different. Owen had done what he could, and he, Mahmoud, was grateful. The man was coming out on Thursday and couldn’t really be expected to talk. It was not Owen’s fault.

Which was all very well, but Owen knew that things weren’t right. When they had first met, and throughout the whole of the day they had spent together, they had got on unusually well. Owen had taken an immediate liking to the Egyptian and he felt that Mahmoud had taken a liking to him. He had found himself responding sympathetically to the Egyptian and understanding what he was after without it needing to be spelt out, and he had felt that Mahmoud was reading him in the same way. This evening, though, there was none of that. Mahmoud was unfailingly courteous, but something was missing. The outgoing friendliness that had characterized him previously seemed to have gone.

In the time that he had been in Egypt Owen had got used to the way in which Arab relationships varied in intensity. Arabs seemed to blow hot and blow cold. They invested their relationships with more emotion than did the stolid English and so their relationships were more volatile. Owen could understand this; perhaps, he told himself wryly, because the Welsh were not altogether dissimilar. Perhaps, more particularly, his own intuitive nature made him especially sensitive to such things.

In an effort to put Mahmoud more at ease, he switched into Arabic. Mahmoud switched back into English.

The conversation was at the level of exchanging commonplaces. Owen knew that when Mahmoud had finished his coffee he would go.

Some shoe-boys were larking about near their table. One of them threw a brush at another. The brush missed and fell under the table. The boy scurried to retrieve it and almost upset their coffee. They grabbed at the table together and cursed simultaneously. The boy fled laughing, chased by a furious waiter. Owen smiled, and thought he saw an answering flicker on Mahmoud’s face.

Deliberately he moved his chair round so that he sat beside Mahmoud, closer to him. Arab conventions of personal territory were different from European ones. What to an Englishman seemed keeping a proper distance, to an Arab seemed cold and unfriendly.

“Your day has been hard?” he asked sympathetically.

At last he got a real response.

Mahmoud looked round at him.

“Not as hard as yours yesterday,” he said bitterly. “Although perhaps you did not find it so.”

Owen knew that Mahmoud was referring to the students.

The remark surprised him. He knew, of course, that this kind of political policing was resented by Egyptians, but had thought that as a member of the Parquet Mahmoud must have come to terms with it. He wondered suddenly what Mahmoud’s own political position was. A bright young Parquet lawyer on the rise might well have political ambitions; and if he did, they might well be on the Nationalist side.

“I was not involved directly,” he said slowly, “although of course I knew of it.”

“Perhaps I should not have spoken,” said Mahmoud.

“No, that’s all right,” said Owen. He smiled. “It’s just that I am trying to think of an answer.”

He pondered for a moment and then decided to go for honesty.

“The answer is,” he said, “that I did not find it hard. It was regrettable, certainly, but a necessity. Given the situation in Egypt. Of course, you may not want to grant the situation. I would understand that.”

A little to his surprise, Mahmoud seemed to find the answer satisfactory. He relaxed visibly and waved to the waiter for more coffee.

“I appreciate your answer,” he said. “And in case you’re wondering, let me tell you I personally am not a revolutionary. Nationalist, yes, reforming, even radical, yes; but not a revolutionary. I would like the British out. But meanwhile…” He sighed. “Meanwhile, for you and for me, there are necessities.”

He paused while the waiter filled their cups.

“However,” he said, “I must tell you I would not want to grant the situation.”

“That,” said Owen, “I can quite understand.”

He brooded a little.

“I can understand,” he said presently, ‘‘a bit at any rate, because I myself am not English.”

“Not English?” said Mahmoud, astonished.

“Welsh.”

“Welsh? Pays Galles?”

Owen nodded.

“I have never met anyone from Wales before,” said Mahmoud. “You probably wouldn’t know if you had. They’re very like Englishmen. Smaller, darker. Not enough to stand out. But there is a difference. In the part of Wales I come from,” said Owen, “most people do not speak English.”

“Vraiment?”

Mahmoud hesitated.

“But-you speak English very well. How-?”

“We spoke both Welsh and English at home,” said Owen. “My father normally spoke English. He wanted me to grow up to be an Englishman. My mother spoke Welsh.”

“And she wanted you to grow up to be a Welshman?” asked Mahmoud.

“Probably,” said Owen, laughing. “She was hopelessly romantic. She wanted Wales to be an independent country again.”

“And that seems romantic to you?”

“In the case of Wales, yes.”

Mahmoud considered.

“In the case of Egypt, too,” he said at length. “Romantic. Definitely romantic.”

Their rapport quite restored, they continued happily drinking coffee.

At the other end of the cafe a party broke up with the usual prolonged Arabic farewells. Most of the party went off together across the square, but one of them made his way along the pavement in their direction, skirting the gambling and waving aside the shoe-boys. As he passed their table his eye caught Owen’s. It was Fakhri.

He stopped in his tracks.

“The Mamur Zapt?” he cried. “And-” taking in Mahmoud-“the Parquet? Together? There must have been a revolution! And no one has told me!”

“Come and join us,” Owen invited, “and we’ll tell you.”

Fakhri dropped into a chair.

“I don’t want to interrupt you,” he said, “unless you’re talking business.”

“Business and pleasure. Mostly pleasure.”

“Ah,” said Fakhri, waving a hand back at the dispersed party. “Like me. Pleasure and business. Mostly business.”

“What is your business?” asked Owen curiously.

“He has not heard,” said Fakhri sorrowfully.

“Fakhri Bey is a distinguished editor,” said Mahmoud.

“Oh, that Fakhri!” said Owen, whose own business was to know the political press. “My apologies. I read your editorials with pleasure. Sometimes.”

“I am afraid you may not read tomorrow’s with pleasure,” said Fakhri.

“The students?” Owen shrugged.

“Quite so,” said Fakhri. “Let us forget about them.”

He and Owen both waved for more coffee simultaneously.

“At least what you say,” said Owen, “will be less predictable than what I read in al Liwa. ”

Fakhri made a face.

“They say everything at the top of their voice,” he said. “There is no light and shade.”

“What’s happening at al Liwa,” asked Owen, “now that Mustafa Kamil has died?”

Mustafa Kamil, the brilliant young politician who had built up the National Party virtually from scratch, had died a month or two previously, from a heart attack.

“They have not sorted themselves out yet. All the top posts keep changing, the editorship among them.”

“The complexion of the paper doesn’t, though,” said Owen.

“It could. It depends on who wins control of the party. If it’s el Gazzari it will become very religious. Crazily so. If it’s Jemal it will go in for heavy doses of revolutionary theory.”

Owen sighed. “Neither will make it more readable,” he said. “They lack your touch.”

Fakhri tried not to look pleased.

“See how expertly he works,” he said to Mahmoud. “This is how the Mamur Zapt gets the press eating out of his hand.”

“The Egyptian press,” said Owen, “is the most independent in the world. Unfortunately.”

They all laughed.

A boy went past sprinkling water to keep down the dust. Fakhri pulled his legs back hurriedly. For a little while there was the lovely, distinctive smell of wet sand.

“How is Nuri Pasha?” asked Fakhri. “I called on him two days ago to express my sympathy but his Berberine told me that he was talking to you.”

“He is well,” said Mahmoud.

“Praise be to God!” said Fakhri automatically.

He hesitated.

“And how are you getting on-?” He broke off. “Perhaps I shouldn’t ask!”

His laugh allowed the brush-off; but he cocked his head attentively, inviting information.

Owen decided to play.

“We hold the man, of course,” he said.

“Ah, yes, but-”

“Those behind?”

Fakhri nodded.

“Not yet.”

Fakhri affected, or showed, disappointment.

Owen decided to try a move of his own.

"The attempt did not come as a surprise to you,” he said, more as a statement than a question.

“No,” said Fakhri. “It did not.”

“Denshawai?”

“Of course.”

“Just Denshawai?”

Fakhri looked surprised.

“So far as I know,” he said.

“The reason why I ask,” said Owen, “is that he doesn’t seem to have been directly involved.”

“More directly than he likes to pretend now,” said Fakhri.

“OK. But surely a minor figure?”

“The civil servant responsible was only a minor figure and he was the first to be shot.”

“I always thought that was in the heat of the moment when the sentences were first announced,” said Owen. Then, after a pause: “You said ‘first’?”

“Yes,” said Fakhri, “I did.”

“You think there are more to come?”

“All Cairo,” said Fakhri, “thinks there are more to come.”

He glanced at his watch.

“I really must go,” he said, getting to his feet. “I have to see the first copy as it comes off the press.”

“I shall read it tomorrow with interest,” said Owen.

‘‘If I were you,” said Fakhri, “I would read tomorrow’s al Liwa also. I think you will find that full of interest, too.”