ed assurance that he means omelette, porridge is cooked
and served with new milk that has been carefully strained and boiled. For
bread we have the flat brown loaves of Mediunah, and they are better than
they look--ill-made indeed, but vastly more nutritious than the pretty
emasculated products of our modern bakeries.

Bargain and sale are concluded before the morning walk is over. The
village folk send a deputation carrying baskets of eggs and charcoal, with
earthen jars of milk or butter, fresh vegetables, and live chickens. I
stayed one morning to watch the procedure.

The eldest of the party, a woman who seems to be eighty and is probably
still on the sunny side of fifty, comes slowly forward to where Salam sits
aloof, dignified and difficult to approach. He has been watching her out
of one corner of an eye, but feigns to be quite unconscious of her
presence. He and she know that we want supplies and must have them from
the village, but the facts of the case have nothing to do with the
conventions of trading in Sunset Land.

"The Peace of the Prophet on all True Believers. I have brought food from
Mediunah," says the elderly advance-guard, by way of opening the campaign.

"Allah is indeed merciful, O my Aunt," responds Salam with lofty
irrelevance. Then follows a prolonged pause, somewhat trying, I apprehend,
to Aunt, and struggling with a yawn Salam says at length, "I will see what
you would sell."

She beckons the others, and they lay their goods at our steward's feet.
Salam turns his head away meanwhile, and looks out across the Atlantic as
though anxious to assure himself about the state of agriculture in Spain.
At last he wheels about, and with a rapid glance full of contempt surveys
the village produce. He has a cheapening eye.

"How much?" he asks sternly.

[Illustration: IN TANGIER]

Item by item the old dame prices the goods. The little group of young
married women, with babies tied in a bundle behind them, or half-naked
children clinging to their loin-cloths, nods approval. But Salam's face is
a study. In place of contemptuous indifference there is now rising anger,
terrible to behold. His brows are knitted, his eyes flame, his beard seems
to bristle with rage. The tale of prices is hardly told before, with a
series of rapid movements, he has tied every bundle up, and is thrusting
the good things back into the hands of their owners. His vocabulary is
strained to its fullest extent; he stands up, an